Etiquette for Thieves
by mellish
Summary: Yuffie's very careful plan to steal everyone's materia goes horribly awry when a certain member of AVALANCHE catches her in the act. Slight Yuffentine. COMPLETED 10/4/10.
1. Prologue

A/N: This initially takes place in the sidequest when you return to Wutai and Yuffie takes your materia, but I did change a lot of the events. Also, there won't be any Yuffentine in this first chapter, but there will be in the next few. :D

**Etiquette for Thieves**

**Prologue**

I think the word nobility has never been used in Wutai. It is 'my lord' – Godo sitting on a throne that is only as high as a pillow on the floor, his belly too big for him to be intimidating, or foreboding, or kingly, which is what one should be when addressed _like that_; and 'my lady' – which is me, a parody of my mother's portrait because my hair is too short and my smile is too big to be demure, and I'm wearing ninja cloth instead of silken robes, like a proper empress would. They use lord or lady or master and sometimes _miss_, and we are the rulers, we are the leaders, we are the incarnates of Leviathan – oh gawds, that one makes me laugh – sometimes we are royalty, but we are never _nobility, _and I think I know why.

Stealing isn't noble.

It wasn't Shake teaching me how to snitch desserts from the kitchen before lunch, when I was five, either; I had plucked out a fistful of hair from my father in an infant tantrum – the bald patch must have lasted for a year, at least – so I had known all about stealing, even at the innocent age of four months. At seven I knew how to hide smaller articles into the folds of my clothes to stave off suspicion; at nine I knew how to scour a beast's dead body for any items that might be valuable. By eleven I had finally fulfilled my threat of moving out from my father's house – only a few blocks away, of course, but that's independent for someone in her preteens, I guess. I devised personal ninja traps to make it more like home (it was only six months later that I learned Godo had dug a passageway which connected our old house to my new one, which explained the heavy breathing I could sometimes hear at night – he was still watching me, overprotective freakish geezer). When I was thirteen I could kill wyverns and adamantines and I could climb the climbable part of Da Chao in five (okay, fine, _twenty_-three) minutes flat. When I was fifteen, my dad sat me down and we had a Talk.

Well, okay, it was actually an Argument, as usual, but to cut it simple, it went like this –

"Yuffie, there is a serious problem with Wutai."

"Yeah, I know. You want me to go and grab some materia so we can stop being a touristy craphole of a country, right, because our ancestors are rolling around in their graves with the way we were so completely butt-kicked by Shinra, rightrightright?"

"Bingo."

Well, we had been planning that for years and years, since I was a fetus in mother's belly – what? Of _course_ I'm exaggerating. It isn't _normal_ for parents to tell their yet-to-be-born child about their plans to dominate the world. But I had understood, for a long time, that this was the Plan. A stupid plan, maybe, but my dad is pretty stupid, and even _I,_ brilliant-sexy-beautiful girl that I am, couldn't think of a better alternative. I had been trained for this Plan, as a ninja – all that one-day-you-will-inherit-the-throne-Yuffie-so-you-better-beat-the-masters-of-the-Pagoda-crap? A pretty story, but _just_ a story, because I'll become ruler of Wutai no matter what, pride of conquering the Pagoda aside. The reason why I slaved away there, Da Chao smiling in all its serenity when my hands were bleeding and Gorki was shouting at me to throw my stars straighter (I had wished, repeatedly, that _he_ could be my target) – it was all for the Plan.

And, well, okay. It's not just Wutai.

I like materia too. It's shiny. It's _pretty._ It's strong and useful and it matters, it feels like power in your hands and magic, and I don't know about everyone else but I can't help it, I _lovelovelove_ materia. I did ever since my father showed me a _heal_ as a baby while I was examining my lungs' capacity for screaming – someone must have told him green was for calming, and my dad sucks as a parent and really believed it (he sucks at everything). But it did work, I stopped experimenting right away. To see something _that_ pretty as a baby and not fall in love, well, that would be nothing short of a miracle (I have yet to see more miracles in my lifetime – materia raining down from the sky is one fantasy, too bad for me if I get knocked out because they're actually quite heavy). So if I am a little obsessive and overly amorous about them balls of magic (don't look at me like that, pervert, that's what they _are_), you can totally blame my dad for that.

So, yeah, backtrack a bit.

After our Talk, Godo gave me an armguard and a headguard and a shiny new shuriken and, from our precious stocks, a Steal materia (hey, I can kick serious butt on my own but I will _never_ waste a chance to get materia, never ever). I was fifteen but I already felt like an adult (proud ninja warrior of Wutai! Daughter of the house of Kisaragi! Drop dead gorgeous princess to boot!), although I guess I'm closer to a kid than otherwise. Oh well. He took me to the gates, faking tears for the citizens' benefit (what citizens?) and then he whispered, in fierce embarrassment, that I needed to zipper my shorts (I had a bad habit of forgetting that. What, it isn't so unusual, is it?). Then, with a wave and a very awkward hug (we showed our affection by punching each other in the gut, old Godo and I, hugs are _way_ weird for us) he sent me off to fulfill the Plan, and I, feeling truly martyred for my country, left Wutai for the World.

I shall leave out the gore and the spitting and the cursing – that would take up even more space than the Talk-which-was-actually-an-Argument. Needless to say I was apparently underequipped for the big bad world, even with my slave-driver ninja training and shiny new shuriken – but I was never a quitter (still ain't) and I bit and lied and scraped my way through until I had a _restore_ and a _thunder_ and _ice_, to boot, all which were slightly trained at that; but it wasn't enough and it wasn't going to be, unless I found a party with a ton of materia on them who were gullible and weak, etc. A merchant party? Some idle Turks? I didn't know, but I was _going_ to fulfill the Plan (and, well, yeah, keep some for myself too. There was no commission in the contract, I expected _something_ for my hard work). No matter _what_ it took.

Leviathan answered my prayers in the voice of Cloud Strife walking into my forest (mine. I had slept in it for nearly a week, so I as good as owned it, yeah) one day. I kicked his hiney good and stole all of his materia – and then, well, okay. I'll stop dreaming. They kicked _my_ butt good until I was lying on the floor in shock, but I still had the magic breath of seduction – I mean, persuasion. And they didn't know how to read the signs, I guess, because they let me into their group easy-peasy.

Fast forward a couple billion hours to today, to the here and now, to me getting off the airship with my knees buckling onto sweet, familiar ground, mother country, it _has_ been a while, Da Chao looming _distantly_ with that same serene smile, I was so glad to be home (or was I just happy to be off that hellship?) and, finally, finally –

"What is this place?" Tifa helped me up while Cloud scanned the mountains around us, looking over the bridges, they were _all here_ and these were the strongest guys I had ever met and they had the wickedest materia IN THE WORLD.

AVALANCHE, friendship, Sephiroth and a really, really big fat crush aside - the Plan was finally gonna come to fruition, the Great Steal, the Restoration, the country's honor brought back by their noble princess.

Not that I'm noble, actually. We don't use that word around here.

* * *

A/N: It's been a while since I wrote a multi-chaptered story, and I have _never_ finished anything that wasn't more than a very very long oneshot. I want to try with this, anyway. I know I took liberties with the verb tenses, grammar in general, Yuffie's past, even her character. I'm writing this the way I perceive her, but I'm always open to any suggestions.

All comments are greatly appreciated. :D


	2. good at planning

A/N: A huge, huge thanks to everyone who reviewed the prologue of this story. Your messages really inspire me. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

**I. (Because I was never really good at planning)**

The name really does fit them, you know – sleeping with AVALANCHE is like sleeping while a mountain collapses right next to you and the rocks rattle off the slope and hit your head ker-pow. They're an _orchestra_ – Cid snores, Barret roars, Cloud goes all identity-crisis in his sleep and mutters Sephiroth, Jenova, Sephiroth (there is something seriously messed up about the fact that he is saying his enemy's name, and not _Tifa _or _Aeris_ or _Yuffie, _com 'ere baby, you know the gist), Tifa and Aeris roll about and look overly concerned, their eyebrows stretched over their faces (nicely plucked eyebrows. I seriously wonder if they argue about who gets to sleep next to our leader – they usually end up in the same tent anyway, and I'm old enough to be getting ideas), Red purrs, Cait Sith goes out like a light (he IS a machine) and Vincent recreates his life story in between long silences and hacking sputters and murmurings of _redemption_.

He didn't sleep the first few days, eyes bloodshot and staring at the moon until I grew frustrated (I canNOT sleep unless everyone else does. Normal thieving reflex – _you _are supposed to be looting the poor folk in their sleep, not the other way around) and yelled at him, "What? Waiting for the moon to turn you into a great big werewolf?" And when he didn't respond I marched up to him and waved my hand in front of his face until his head tilted, slightly, and he let out a little wheeze that might have been a breath.

"Yuffie," Aeris said complacently, smoothing out her sheets, "He's already sleeping."

Ha ha double HA. I was red and furious and silly, but his eyes were still open so _there_. That was the best argument I could come up with. Lame, I know.

Luckily that was just the first time. He closes his lids now, a lot, but he's always the last to fall asleep (before myself, of course. I've explained that already). The only way you can tell he's really sleeping is if he starts saying the L-word. No, it's not a four-letter one. He goes _jabbermuttermumble_ and then first he says the H-word (well _that_ one has four letters) and then, slow and passionate like some violin solo, _"Lucceeereettiiiiahhh,_" And it would be funny if it weren't my cue to get up then and start STEALING.

Camped out here, just a mountain away from the first of Wutai's shores, I'd be back in my country by the next morning and I was counting on them to find out way too late. The terrain is dangerous, the bridges have holes all over them that only a well-trained ninja can cross, and if they don't measure every step they'll fall right through. The beasts around the area aren't easy like the ones near the chocobo farm, either, and without materia they're a real handful. _Without materia. _I seriously hoped they would give up the chase and leave before they got ripped to shreds – okay, they could probably handle the beasts but my country (the part of it that was actually populated with houses and the like) was still a good distance off. They'd be bruised and bleeding, at best, before they dragged themselves into a puddle at the Pagoda's front door (archway? Gate?). And if that happened, if they did get that far –

- okay, so I don't know.

Well, it wasn't a very well-planned plan, but I wasn't a very good planner (I never _asked_ to be born into rulership, kay?), and it had taken me a year and a half to get this far and if it took any longer I was going to go soft and forget about it, because Tifa is so nice and Aeris is so much like the mother I never had, and Red and Cait Sith are fuzzy and Barret and Cid are big jerks but I still love them bunches, and Cloud has got blue eyes and serious issues but he's still a better role model than my fat old _dad_, and Vincent Valentine is a serious jerkwad deathzombie creep with no social skills whatsoever and a broken heart...

...And the nicest eyes and lips and the sexiest voice in the universe.

He has the noble nose I was never born with.

(In other words, _now_ you know who I'm crushing on, and it really sucks to be sixteen.)

I was going to cave and give up the Plan all for these guys, if I didn't nab their materia right then and there.

I rolled out of my bed and went on tiptoe, tossing off my ragged sleeping cloak to reveal me fully clothed and all set to do my job. Knapsack in hand, regret bitten down on my lower lip, I snuck around feeling both exhilarated and really, really afraid. Quiet. Too quiet. There were no crickets chirping in the stone-cold mountains of Wutai; I was counting on Cid's nose doing a saxophone solo for me to cover up in case I messed up, you know. Or something.

I edged my way to the pile that our weapons made on the floor – I snatched up mine first, as a precaution (like who was I kidding, I could NEVER hurt these guys – directly, of course, because stealing their materia is definitely crippling them in some ways); then I started to click the materia out of everything: Tifa's gloves, Cloud's badass sword, Aeris's staff, Cid's lance, praying that they wouldn't hate me for this and cast Holy on me, or throw a ton of Comet on Wutai, I dunno. Oh gawds. I was going to be right next to Sephiroth and Hojo on AVALANCHE's death list, once they had crossed out those two out they were going to come for me...

_Don't chicken out of it now, Yuffie, seriously, you'll be invincible by that time and they won't be able to lay a _finger_ on you. _

Some of this was going to be trickier, I realized, after I had taken all the loot from our accessories: armlets and bracelets and rings, it was pure goodness of heart that I didn't steal those too (also the fact that my knapsack felt decidedly heavier by then. An oversight – was I really gonna lug that _all the way across these mountains? _Help, gawds). I tiptoed to the other side of the room where Red was lying with his paws crossed underneath his great golden head, tail still on the floor, and as gently as I could I removed the materia from his clip. His nose sniffed for a moment and I was deathly afraid he had caught some sort of kleptomaniac pheromone emanating from my skin in the darkness – but then he gave a growly sneeze and turned away. That was too close. WAY too close.

Barret was a difficulty, too...I had to make a very gentle, very nimble ninja flip to reach him at the far end of the tent, because Cloud-Tifa-Aeris-Cid made a big fat pile of flesh in the middle. No one had wanted to sleep near the gun-arm man. I'm surprised his daughter never had nightmares, not even Godo snores like that. However, he sleeps as messy as I do – hands and giant legs stuck up all over the place and his face deep in his pillow. Using a flexibility I was not sure I possessed, I stretched my hand to reach his gun-arm and pulled out his materia – _three-star earth, three-star fire and a mastered long-rage_. It was worth it, so worth it.

Last, but not least, Vinnie Valentine - and unlike Barret and Red he doesn't exactly wear his weapons, so his only reason for sleeping with his is that he's got some serious phobia of nighttime killers. His precious gun was clutched to his chest, the way I used to hug my stuff toys – all too ready to be whipped out to kill the nightmares (that I have since learned are all contained within his head). It was going to be a _tough_ reach, prying them from between his fingers – but there's a reason why this sort of scam is called a _cleansweep_, and not a _halfway-she-forgot-something__sweep_. Also, well, leaving just _his_ materia behind? That would almost certainly be favoritism, and I couldn't bear thinking that anyone would imagine that. I settled down my knapsack gently on the floor, reassured by the _whud_ that all the materia was still inside, and then I put my hand forward and unfastened his fingers from the gun, the precious pistol...

...which was suddenly pointed to my head.

At least that's what it _felt_ like, when he opened his eyes and stared at me cold and sharp like a dozen bullets hitting my being, I seriously wished that he had killed me dead right then.

I was caught and staring and stupid, and any moment now the buggy would hit this deer and she'd go flying. I did what any sensible deer would do. I blinked my eyes in the crazy headlights of his wine-red smoldering gaze and hightailed it out of there, snatching the bag of materia with one hand before I could let it go, dimly aware of the fact that I was probably screaming and waking everyone up and my big Plan (Godo's big Plan! Wutai's big Plan!) was ruined all for nothing, for my stupidity, I deserved it, didn't I? I heard footsteps behind me. Big, clanking, metal-plated footsteps and Vincent Valentine didn't look it but he could run real _fast_.

I ran, ran, ran all the way to the edge of a cliff and was off it before I could stop myself. Great. Panic had made me commit suicide. There was a sound like a cape flapping and a harsh, ugly squeal that must have been me when his claw caught the flesh on my back and dragged great, painful lines through my shirt and my _skin_, and I was bleeding (had he _meant_ to do that? Had he tried to _kill_ me?), the sack was escaping from my hand and slipping down and there was an ocean below us and air between us and nothing to save us

and I was a fool for not planning this more carefully.

* * *

A/N: I wasn't sure about using up this idea for a story written through Yuffie's point of view, but it happened. Also, I'm afraid I might have disillusioned everyone by writing that this would become _Yuffentine_...it's the unrequited sort. The way the story goes, no matter how much I tweak it, it will probably be very platonic on Vincent's part, at best. I just can't seem to make it really romantic if Yuffie's still sixteen. Sorry. xx I hope it's still fun, anyway.

The next chapter might take a little longer to put up. As always, all comments are very much appreciated. Thanks for reading. :D


	3. eyes like that

A/N: I'm quite sure the ending of this chapter will thoroughly affect the rest of the story, but I decided not to fiddle with it anymore. Thanks to all who commented on the last two chapters, it really means a lot to me. Hope you enjoy this one.

**II. (Because who can resist eyes like that)**

I wish I had liked Cloud.

I did, at first, as soon as I had the breath back to shout at him and ask if he wasn't interested in my name, at least, because I _was_ going to join them right? Sheesh. Cloud tries too hard to act like a hero when we all know, for a fact, that he is a humongous _goof_ (oh, come on, he dressed up like a girl once just to get info out of Don Corneo, if that's not totally un-hero than it certainly is hilarious – and Tifa told me he was lovely in drag. Very lovely. He actually got picked to be Corneo's broad – I mean, bride that night). He has big blue puppy eyes and amazingly spiky blond hair, and if that doesn't make him Instant Candidate for Chick Magnet then I don't know _what_ does, but I drooled over him like any proper teenager, and participated in Cloudaholic conversations with the other girls. (Women. I was the only girl.)

Tifa and Aeris knew I was no competition – and their own dibs on him were kinda too serious, so I had to back away before any vicious chickfights ensued. (Not that any did, although _how_ they manage, I have no idea.)

I liked Cloud all the way until we resurrected Mr. Zombie, digging him out of his tomb – I found the numbers to the safe, _thankyouverymuch_, and I was thinking of the giant gleaming treasure rooms that were almost certainly hidden underneath this creepy mansion (mansions equal wealth, wealth equals materia). Instead, we got red-eyed orbs that weren't Bahamut, and a brief speech about some beautiful lady and nightmares before he swooped back into the coffin and told us to leave him alone. Of course, he ate his words a few minutes later, revenge or redemption, don't we all wonder. He was officially Mr-Yuck-I'd-Never-Fall-For-_Him_, and I was telling myself he smelled like mold and _looked_ like mold and had about as much personality as a great big mold because I was starting to like him and that was definitely not part of the Plan.

So it wasn't, but I liked him anyway – like him, I mean. Still do. Can't really explain it – he might be called _handsome_, if you like skeletons and are all for that guys are prettier than girls thing. I always thought I'd fall for someone who looked at the things the way I did – someone who would act as decoy while I nabbed innocent travelers of their goods, that sort of partner. He would have been cute, of course, but I don't think I ever expected him to have skin this white and hair this dark, or such weird eyes, as a matter of fact. This guy was as different from me as you could get – he didn't talk, I yabbered away like a broken recorder; he stood still and shot things with his gun, I danced around and slashed things using my lovely ninja grace; I liked sweet food, he glared at everything with bitter eyes and the declaration that he was not hungry.

I liked shiny things, he had a shiny claw, that's about all the association we should have had – only it wasn't, because much as I hated it, I liked him. Sometimes I swiped at his claw to play-act, telling him I have a shiny fetish (I do), and it's actually in my great big To-Steal list, next to a Golden Chocobo and a Golden Ticket and a Golden Bangle – Golden Claw, Vincent's Golden Claw. I don't know if it's really made of gold. It probably isn't. But it sure is shiny.

And sharp. I hadn't known that until it dug into my skin and split my back open clean like the flapping gills of a dying fish, my brain saying a very calm ouch while I was probably exploding everyone's eardrums with my screaming. Holy hell, it _hurt_. I tried to cling on to my fabulous sack of materia, because it was tipping out of my grasp, the lovely balls falling down and landing _plop plop plop_ into the ocean which I was going to crash into, and I had the very prim thought of _oh crap, saltwater is going to make my brand new claw-cuts sing with pain_ except I never met the water. Vincent was holding me, I noticed in my braindead numb horror – he was saying something and was actually underneath me to brace the fall, I don't know, but couldn't he fly? Couldn't he? I realized just as suddenly that the whistling in the air was not just me falling – it was a chopper, the ShinRa kind, and hands were grabbing at me and hauling me onboard.

I saw red cape and black suits and my sack of materia only half-full on the floor beside me, and I would have thrown up (I hate airborne vehicles, hate them) if they had not drugged me right then. I got knocked out still feeling the fresh wounds on my back, thinking about how close I had been to executing the Plan and how stupid I was for taking that risk.

_-xx-_

I wouldn't have, you know.

I just wanted to look at his face a bit longer. He had always suspected me, I think. (Raised eyebrows and curling lips and sometimes when he coughed I _swear_ he was saying '_treacherous._') I didn't look trustworthy to him – but I think he knew that if he said so, no one would believe him, because come on, whose side would _you_ take – the guy that looks like a druggie, or the totally irresistibly cute and perky ninja girl who is so obviously innocent? You get my point, yes? Yes. I just felt bad that I had to prove his theory right. And he looked really cute in the moonlight – except he's all white flesh, of course, his skin is as ivory as his _bone_.

I'm not unconscious, am I?

I'm wishing, not for the first time, that I had liked Cloud instead.

_-xx-_

I used to think the Turks were totally useless, kind of like the hilarious bad guys that never do anything right in those old cartoons on Saturday morning (in addition to being a tourist trap, Wutai gave up all notion of honor and actually bought some technology, gasp, and I loved television even if Godo told me it was the hellspawn of ShinRa. He watched it too, the big hypocrite. They would televise sumo matches every day at five thirty). But either they were very lucky or secretly very smart, because my clumsy capture had given them a bagful of materia, and cut off AVALANCE by two members and just about all the magic they had (aside of Aeris' innate talent for healing and the fire on Red's tail, which was not much good for anything much except burning weeds and lighting candles). I woke up to the music of The Worst Concussion of the Century and instantly decided that I would rather go back to sleep.

"Yuffie." Cool and calm and slightly muffled by the collar of his cape. I did my best to show that I was still sleeping by letting my head loll onto my chest – the headache worsened, and he was unconvinced. "Yuffie, please."

Okay, fine, if he was going to ask _that _nicely.

"You tore my back open," I informed him nastily, losing all notion of acting like I just woke up. Those were the first words out of my mouth; they leaped out before I could stop them, as if they had been on my tongue the whole time I was unconscious, from the moment he turned my skin into curlicues of Yuffie, only they had no chance at being spoken 'til now. Once they were out there in the air I was acutely reminded of that fact – my back stung despite the cooling of a very weak Cure spell, and I might have been seeing things but the tips of his claw looked maroon. "That _hurt_, you bastard." Good morning, I mentally added. Yes, you caught me redhanded stealing the materia off everyone. I admit it. While we're on confessions, I also have a whopping crush on you, isn't that just lovely.

I glared at him (he seemed to shrivel down into his collar), although it was probably my fault that he was there, in the first place. Also, I would have been drowned through by then if he hadn't come after me, but _still_. It was his fault for waking up. (I am the Queen of Lame Excuses.) My head felt like it was being grinded through a mental food processor, my back had been torn into shreds, and I was still pissed off that the Plan had not gone right. Cloud would save us, eventually – if we weren't worth the trouble then their materia was, and he was going to get it back whether or not the Turks were being agreeable. I could imagine old Spike getting up and giving a bloodcurdling howl. I was _so_ going to get it now.

I dimly registered the fact that I was not fighting back the urge to barf, which meant that we were on dry, solid land. I studied my surroundings carefully – there were storage boxes and crates stacked against the walls, and one dim light bulb hanging in the middle of the room. Nothing much else except dust and Vinnie's depression, and my own delirious irritation. Unless the helicopter had actually been a jet, we were probably still close to Wutai. _Close to AVALANCHE._ I felt my insides go wobbly with anxiety – I wanted to kick my feet and pound my fists and throw a monster tantrum, except my legs and arms were bound together.

An underestimation of my ninja skills, unfortunately. The Turks weren't so smart after all. With great annoyance I wriggled through the knots until my hands were free. It would have taken less time if I wasn't so steaming mad, I guess. I undid the ropes around my feet and got up, stretching, pointedly ignoring Vincent who was bound up on the wall opposite. At this point, I didn't know what to do – humble myself and ask that he forgive me? Yell at him that it was his fault? Confess my love? Nothing seemed particularly apt.

Vincent's head was bowed, his eyes were on the floor. "I apologize for that. It was – I reached out my hand without thinking. I saw that you were falling and tried to stop you, but I hurt you instead." (Wow, his words had a dual meaning. Way cool, Vinnie.) His tone was dripping with guilt, but I decided not to be swayed. This guy _loves_ taking the blame. Still, when he looked up again, his eyes held more than the usual regret.

No swooning _now_. I shook my head. "Okay, first things first."

"Um." He gestured to his bound arms.

I was so obviously a villain by then that it wouldn't hurt to push the evil act a little more. "I won't untie you until you tell me stuff." Like, did he see Cloud climbing up the cliff shaking a fist at us and Barret shooting rounds into blank air spitefully while we sped away on a ShinRa helicopter? Who exactly was with us here? Why did they not gag us? Well, that's no surprise for Vinnie, he wouldn't scream for help if he was being raped by perverts who had mistaken him for a girl, but me, I can screech like a banshee. That would make a good first question. "Did I wake everyone up running away?"

"No. You didn't say anything – you just turned and ran. I followed you."

So I _hadn't _woken them up. That was a relief, but it still wouldn't help the situation in the long run. I refused to be comforted.

"How long have we been out?"

"Almost a day, I imagine."

"The Turks?"

"Rude and Reno bound us, and I believe they're the only ones here. I'm not sure where we are." His eyes were dull as he admitted that – being trounced by the organization he used to work for must suck loads. I sighed. _What about the big bag of materia?_ Half of it was in the ocean, I remembered sadly and suddenly. A waste. My precious materia! I eyed him warily, but he didn't say anything about the matter, head cocked to the side and face still looking troubled from my accusation. Well, if he wasn't going to mention it, neither was I. Maybe he was being a gentleman, decades-old hopeless-romantic that he was; but it could also have been his memory screwing up on him. They had drugged him pronto too, after all (but the aftereffects must have taken longer if he had seen who had tied us up).

That's another thing about ShinRa, they make wicked good drugs. The drugs mess up your head, sure, but they beat tranquilizers for calming motion sickness any day.

I wished I had gotten a double dose as I undid the rope on Vincent's arms and legs. He stood and brushed himself off.

I scowled at him. "Where's the exit?"

All he could offer was a shrug.

I have mentioned before that I am not good at foresight; but right then I had to come up with a very, very good and executable Plan B.

Gawds help me.

* * *

A/N: It might take a while for the next update too, but I hope the lengthier chapters make up for that. Comments are well-appreciated.


	4. pride and deception

A/N: Third chapter up at last. For _Noc and NC_, because she promised not to mind the wait, and for everyone else who left a nice note after the last chapter. I really appreciate it, thank you. :D**  
**

**III. (Because pride and deception go hand in hand)**

If there is one thing a Wutaian is guilty of, it's pride. It's pride in the features of our face, the way we are all trained to fight, the manifold traps sprung up in every house, the crushed rice wine we drink at the age of ten to pledge our services to the nation. It's pride in the towering of the Pagoda and the way Da Chao casts a shadow over everything at sunset – it's pride in the graces we gain as people of Leviathan. It's pride that lines Godo's face when he talks about _the olden days, _and it's pride that runs like hot fire through my veins because I can't stand being indebted, or ridiculed, or a failure.

It's pride that was robbed from us, by the War and ShinRa and Sephiroth. It's pride and it's unfounded but I still stick my chin up anyway, because there's no denying my heritage. Everything I do is an attempt to bring this pride back, to make the feeling _worth_ it, but now –

Now I might have screwed everything.

It was pride that made me turn my head away from Vincent and face the only door in the room, because I just couldn't look at him. "Let's try to move out," I said, irritated and still drowsy from the drug, not to mention nauseous with regret. I stretched and started walking towards the entrance, and then, because I still felt incredibly mean, "It's probably better if I go alone, you know, your brass boots make helluva lot of noise."

Vincent looked at me morosely, as if he wasn't sure why I was being so cruel, although after a moment he closed his eyes and seemed to give an inward nod to himself, as if saying, _well, I always deserve it_. I don't know what's up with his self-flagellation thing but seriously, I'd give him a whip if I thought he could beat himself out of it. He's too self-loathing. I bet his sins are nowhere near as bad (voluntarily, at least) as mine. Before I could try the doorknob, though, he took a heavy step towards me and said, "We should clean up your back first." A strange comment coming from a guy who looked like he severely enjoyed cutting up people, if not himself, but it was pointed and sincere and totally true.

Woah. No way, hold on there, I wasn't going to be tended to by this sadist vampire no matter how gentle he seemed. He was free to search for an outlet for _redemption_, but I wasn't a good target at all. He didn't know what he _did_ to me, what I _felt _for him, and I wasn't at all in the mood to be patronized and patted on the head, especially by someone I had just stolen from. I didn't want him to be nice to me, I didn't want gallantry or camaraderie, I wanted to get out of there, I wanted to run away. I wanted to feel proud of what I had tried to accomplish, not regretful and embarrassed because his stare was so appealing.

It was the lovechild of pride and a stupid crush that made me say, "It's fine, okay, it doesn't really hurt," except that my wake-up call prior had totally screamed otherwise. _Way to go, Yuffie_. "We should try to get out of here first," I babbled, then I tried to gesture towards the door to pull his attention away, but he was already reaching out for my wrist so that he could spin me around and inspect the wound, which was totally making me hysterical.

"We can't attempt escape if you're hurt." He caught my wrist (gah double GAH), pulled me away from the door, and sat me down on a crate, walking around behind me. I remembered that his claws had sunk through the fabric of my clothes, too, so that he could probably see my backside and all, which would be perfectly fine if I had nice shoulder blades or something. I don't. This situation would actually be pretty sexy and a great opportunity to seduce him if I possessed that sort of charm and boobs as big as Tifa, since we were alone in a room with a lot of ropes and he was trying to heal my back's unbleeding wounds, but whatever, it wasn't like that. It was awkward and gloomy and I was groggy and mad and he was being businesslike, not sweet.

"I don't have any potions, but it looks like someone had the mercy to stop it bleeding. We should still cover it up, though."

I refused to be agreeable. "Cover it up with what? There's nothing."

He kept quiet for a moment, then held out his cape to show the extremely tattered fringe.

I gaped at it, touched and extremely weirded out at the same time. "You wouldn't."

"In any other situation, no, but we need to escape and we can't have those wounds opening again. It won't matter if I cut through the ends. It's already ruined."

That only embarrassed me further. I decided that I hated him horribly for it. He inspected the grooves he had cut through me, and I felt like I was ten years old and nearly naked while a particularly creepy doctor checked me for bruises. I was trying to get my defense mechanisms to work so that I could jabber away and stop feeling awkward, but the best I could come up with was, "Where'd you learn your first aid anyway?"

"As a Turk." He coughed slightly, then, using his most deadpan voice, articulated, "You've got some netting underneath this, don't you? I need you to take off your – vest."

Ninja netting as a standard precaution, and underwear beneath that, but there was _no _way I was going to take off my shirt for this guy. Not that he'd have anything to oogle at anyway, but, BUT STILL. If he thought I was just a little kid and it was okay, he was sorely mistaken (but then again he probably had no sense of time, or all his testosterone was sucked out during his stay in a coffin, _nothing_ can turn this guy on). Whatever it was, it wasn't worth any more of my dignity. I decided to keep silent, kicking out my heels and looking stoutly up at the ceiling.

"Yuffie, I need to bandage this properly."

"It doesn't hurt."

As if to disprove this, he put his human hand against the flesh. It _burned with pain. _I must have screeched insanely, throwing back a fist to hit his face. He dodged it, and in my lack of attention took the opportunity to slip off my torn-up top. I tried reaching back for it, red because I was both furious and embarrassed, but he pulled it away and forced me down. "Don't make this difficult," He said, as strict as old Gorki. I saw that it was useless to argue, although I grumbled and shifted and certainly made it hard for him. He started his task and I was just readying myself not to speak a single word, awkward as this was, when he broke the silence with the clipped statement of,

"You tried to take our materia."

So much for being a gentleman. I remember having thought that we wouldn't have this conversation, but that was just wishful thinking. Denial would be too shameful. I cut to the chase so he would know I wasn't going to be a coward about it.

"Yeah." The confession tasted bitter in my mouth. I shrugged my shoulders. "You shocked me good when you woke up. I think it's quite sensible for thieves to run when they're caught."

"But not sensible for friends to steal." There was something bitter in his voice that smashed my feelings to a million pieces. In retaliation I acted perfectly bratty, giving another sharp wriggle so that he had to undo the bandages and start over.

"That was my plan all along, and it almost worked," I sniffed, doing my best to sound impassive and failing. It was true. I had stolen from them – I wasn't their friend and now I could never be. The thought was too much to bear. The guys would be steaming mad, but Aeris and Tifa would just be disappointed, which was, if possible, worse. I was starting to get the inclination that bleeding to death was a much more happy prospect than seeing AVALANCHE after all this was over, and tried to glare Vincent out of wrapping me up, but he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"I don't know your reasons," he said, and then he stopped. He was probably thinking of a polite way to say that he still thought my actions unforgivable. I didn't doubt his reasoning, but he was making me feel sicker and suckier with every word.

"It's my country," I offered weakly, angrily. "Wutai. You don't know how bad it is."

"It can't be bad enough to steal our materia," he answered, and this time I could _really_ sense the heat in his words. "We trained our materias very well, and we require them for the final battle. We do not stand a chance against Sephiroth if we do not possess any magic." He wrapped another piece of cloth over my nonboobs, and I winced. He was doing this _tightly_. "I know I undertook this journey for personal reasons as well, but Cloud has made it clear that he is glad of all our help. He and the others have extended their kindness to us."

This, coming from the lone wolf, the guy that never participated in our conversations, who polished his guns while we all played poker? Unbelievable. I gave Vincent less credit than he was worth – he actually _liked_ AVALANCHE, beneath the frowns and sighs. "Well, you never _act_ very friendly yourself," I grumbled.

"The keyword there is _act_. I have never taken it into my head to betray."

"But what about Wutai's _honor?_" I asked sulkily. It was pride in my blood and pride that we deserved, pride that Godo sent me to search for, pride in the magic that AVALANCHE harnessed, pride in the scars that would dry on my back because at least I tried, and he was trying to take that away from me. He was starting to _succeed_.

I don't know how he caught my train of thought, but at those words Vincent put both hands on my shoulders – I jerked back reflexively at the feel of his claw, still aware of the wounds across my backside – and looked deep into my eyes, hard and hurt, solemn and livid at the same time (fire and ice, I thought, in a spasm of elemental idealism). "This isn't about _pride, _Yuffie –" but to me it was, it always had been, and I was not going to back down just because I had some mild affection for him and he was making me feel like crap because he didn't _like_ me or trust me and he had good reason not to, it was all about pride, it always was. "This is about deception – you deceived our party, and they all trusted you. I thought you might try something like this, at first, but I was starting to believe you wouldn't."

There was something not unlike hatred in his tone, but after a moment he realized himself and calmed down, probably appalled at how much his voice had risen above its usual stony rumble. I caught an expression on his face that told me this wasn't his first taste of betrayal, and the first had definitely been the worst. He pulled his hands away and started finishing his bandaging, and I was sorry before I could stop myself, but I still tried not to be. _He takes everything so personally_, I fumed. _He's forcing me to apologize so that they can get the materia back easy-peasy. Ain't gonna happen, buster, ain't –_

But it was, I knew, deep deep inside me, I was going to give back their materia as soon as I could, pride or no, forgiven or not, I would give it all back if I could. When I could.

I bowed my head, feeling lower than the scum in the sewers underneath Honeybee, and he tied off the bandages on my back and stepped away from me, handing back my shirt as he did so. "That should be all right for now," he stated quietly, all fiery irritation gone and replaced by the usual cool nothing. I pulled my top back on, face blazing and feelings raging. Things were SO not going my way.

"Well, I'm _sorry_ you got dragged into this mess," I muttered, trying not to cry (I was horrified when I realized that the tears actually _were_ on their way. Nuh-uh, I had already been degraded enough). "And I'm sorry that your claw didn't _kill_ me, because that would have probably made things all right."

Vincent had started to make for the door, but at those words he turned around and faced me, and I saw in his eyes a gut-wrenching, heartrending guilt. "No," he said, and his voice was suddenly deathly cold and concerned. "Is that what you think? Yuffie, I did not mean to hurt you in that manner. That was not intentional. It was – my lack of control. It was this claw, this inhumanity. I am sorry."

All anger lost – suddenly the hate was directed at himself, the spite deflected from me to him in the blink of an eye. His tone wobbled slightly, and I wondered if any man had ever possessed so much humility. The matter of materia-theft dissolved completely, and all that was left was Vincent with another sin on his head. I couldn't believe it. He clomped towards me, face ashen, and I was so nervous I could only stare.

He leveled his face at me, features clouded by his mass of beautiful black hair, all gloom and doom and deep despair. "I simply wanted to advice you that it would be better to retract all mistakes while you still can, because some sins might never be absolved."

And I thought he hated me, but I found he didn't, because when he said the next few words I knew he was being sincere.

"And also because you're not a bad person, Yuffie. I know that much."

The way he said it made me feel evil a hundred times over, and I suddenly wished that I could be guilty of something other than pride, because if I did, I might have told him right then how much I didn't want to love him.

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A/N: I believe this is the most awful, awkward chapter I have done so far . D: I hope that you still enjoyed it anyhow, and that you'll be willing to read the next few chapters. Comments are always _very _greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.


	5. a clumsy child

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. This one's for you** - **I hope it's worth the wait. :D**  
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**IV. (Because I was always a rather clumsy child)**

If I had to choose just _one_ thing I am incredibly good at (given that I am almost good at everything!), it's falling. I have fallen from every height imaginable. I have tripped on my own two feet countless times, which is a very short distance. My father, as I have mentioned before, is a sucky parent, and he let me roll out of cribs and out of high pillow stacks (and even stab myself with a stray throwing star!), and he didn't know how to carry me properly so I fell out of his grasp pretty often. I bet my mom would have never dropped me. I have fallen out of trees and rooftops, even been forced to brave the heights of Da Chao (but that's another story entirely and one I don't like remembering). Besides, every ninja of Wutai has had some training with a grappling hook. I have also learned how to turn a somersault right before I land, so that it softens the fall; but even if I forget to cushion the drop, it never hurts _that_ bad – scratches and bruises and a sprained wrist twice, sure, but I can always get over _that_.

So yes, I am extremely good at _falling, _but spiraling downwards into the hotter-than-hell throes of a blazing crush is not something I've had practice with. I realized, sharply and acutely, that I hated the feeling. It didn't make me happy, it didn't make me giddy, it didn't come with dreams of marriage and whispering his name into the air when he wasn't looking, it just made me mad and sad. Sad because he's _Vincent_, you know, it's not like anyone has a chance with him unless it's Lucretia, who, from my understanding, is _dead_ – and the most fun you'd get out of him is a pity party, probably: _Hey Vincent, wanna exchange whips and whack each other? It might take away our sins, yanno. _And then I get mad, because it screws up my feelings and my actions, too, and it makes me feel like I'm younger than my age when I'm supposed to be invincible and inalienable and totally in control. That's what I get for liking a dead guy, I guess. I could always get up from a fall before, but now it's like I'm sprawled at the bottom of a cliff with a boulder on my belly. I just can't escape.

"You're not a bad person, Yuffie," he said, and it meant more to me than anything in the world, because it probably wasn't true but he _thought_ it was, and he looked guiltier than ever.

And I found I had enough cheer to go back to my usual self and start pushing him around, start getting things done, start attempting to fix the situation, just because he didn't hate me. Start doing things _right_. I gave in. I poked him in the chest from where he was looming over me, face overcast by the faulty light bulb, and said, "Okay, Vinnie, you win, K-O, game over for me. I'll give everyone's materia back when I've got it, okay? So quit mopin and let's get outta here, back to the door, back to freedom. You with me?"

His features shifted to allow a very involuntary, very teeny-tiny smile, a twitch-of-the-lips-hardly-nothin' smile, and he said, almost as if he didn't quite believe me, "You forgive me?"

"Only if you forgive _me_," I pushed, never ready to give without taking.

He paused for a moment, one eyebrow raised, as if he were meaning to say, _you drive a hard bargain, Kisaragi. _I held my breath anyway. "You have my forgiveness," he intoned carefully, but before I could give a whoop of success, added, "But I reserve the right to withdraw it if you do not keep your word."

"Sure." I tried to keep my face straight, and put a hand out, as if I were officiating a gambling deal. "Let's shake on it."

He took my hand and waggled it gingerly, so that I laughed and told him he was a wimp, which made him give another nothing-grin, and I melted into a puddle of Yuffieswoon on the spot.

Look, I'm not a superficial person, although it might come off that way. The eye candy is just a bonus. Maybe it's because we had both had back row duty, being long-rage weapon users. We had to throw items and support spells at each other, and shout out warnings when the enemy was about to strike; maybe it's because we did the whole roommates gig after Cloud had gotten a headache sorting out pairing assignments. That wasn't too long after Vinnie joined us. I still thought he was spectacularly spooky and I demanded that he camp with Cid and that I stay with Tifa, or Aeris – but Cid claimed that he'd stay with Barret (_you coward,_ I had shouted, but I think about it now and maybe he was trying to be suggestive) and Cloud had Tifa and Aeris stay together (to settle the matter of who slept – in the totally innocent sense of that word, of course – with him), and he claimed that he and Red and Cait Sith would all just stay in the same room, sacrificial hero that he was. I bullied Vincent into the far corner of our room, although he did not seem to mind. He fell asleep on the chair when in fact there were two beds. I felt all guilty but I didn't say anything, and I wondered if he was really truly asleep, therefore wasting hours of my precious sleeping time staring at his face (I refuse to admit that it was worth it). He seemed so _dead_. It made me feel kinda sad.

Maybe it's because he's such a big black ball of angst, and I can't stand that. I don't see how anyone can – I mean, it's totally pointless to be alive if you're not _living_. How could you spend so much time stuck in a _coffin_, and not care? He had even wanted to stay there for longer. I wouldn't last five minutes locked into that place without having a magical meltdown and running into the musty walls to kill myself. Seriously, that would be a perfect example of my hell. Not that I'm the kind of nosy twerp that butts into other people's business without reason, but I couldn't help myself in his case. I like a good challenge, and I hate it when people can't laugh or can't smile or can't even spare the effort to greet you _good morning_, and that's exactly what Vincent did. He dragged down AVALANCHE's good mood bar fifty notches. Nobody seemed to want to push the matter too far, so I took it upon myself to shove him around and ask him about it, and crack every joke in the book and even sacrifice my dignity to pull some funny faces, but all I got was nothing.

And sometimes it _hurt._ And sometimes I got the feeling it was hopeless. And after a while I stopped trying and remembered that it was silly to get attached to these people since I was supposed to be plundering them, and I got my goals back into perspective, but the worry still lingers and the feelings still linger and I think I have fallen too far to get back up.

It scares me when I think it might not be just a crush, not just a silly _he's so cute, darnit_. It scares me when I think this might be the one guy I'll have eyes for my whole life. That would totally, totally suck. I want to have a happy ending, not a boo-hoo-he'll-never-love-me ending. Even if _that_ won't happen, and fat chance because haha, why would Vincent ever want to go with _me_, I'm the farthest thing from Lucretia and angst and beautiful _possible_, I don't think our conclusion would be anywhere near cheerful. We'd set up a house in the outskirts of Nibelheim and he'd have his coffin and I'd be reduced to a gentle wife coaxing him out of it. It's just _not_ the adventure I've always wanted.

"Now that that's done," I kidded, pulling my hand away before I started blushing, "Let's try the door. If we're gone for too long Cloud and the others might think, oh, I dunno, we eloped or something." I teased him with the sole purpose of scaring him into action, and he nodded right away and tried twisting the knob. Predictably enough, it wouldn't budge. He tried putting his shoulder against it and exerting force, but it still wouldn't move.

"I didn't think they'd have the brains to take our weapons," I muttered truthfully when I had tried wrestling with the door myself.

"The Turks are not so efficient as they were during my time - " and he said _my time_ like it was a million years ago, which made me wonder just how long he had been staying in the coffin (which, in turn, made me think that it was truly a problem if he was older than my dad, which he might have been). " – But they're not entirely incapable. There must be something we can use around here, though." He gestured to the boxes around us uncertainly. "It was an oversight that they left us in a room with plenty of materials."

We started tearing open the tops of the nearest storage boxes – mine opened to list upon list of ShinRa's stocks, his opened to about fifty nearly expired rations in plastic containers.

"Yuck," I announced.

"It's what the SOLDIERS used to eat," he responded gravely.

I searched around the back of the room, energy level still lower than I'd prefer it to be, joking about how we'd probably find Reno's porno or a stack full of Rude's shades, everything here was impossibly useless. One of the crates held a great number of nightsticks, and since we had better be armed when we got out, I handed one to Vincent and kept another for myself. He took it with the distinct expression of nostalgia, which was kind of creepy. I rubbed my arms and coughed as the dusty lid of a storage box slid into my lap.

"You know, I still need to give _something_ to Wutai, otherwise I'll either be disgraced or disowned."

Vincent answered smoothly while prying away several layers of styrofoam from a crate (I hate that, you know, it really pisses me off that ShinRa uses all this synthetic, disposable junk to pollute the world). "If AVALANCHE succeeds, you may give them the guarantee that they are safe from Sephiroth and meteor. And, hopefully, the peace of ShinRa in better hands, but we won't achieve that sooner by remaining here." When he peered inside the box only to find a bunch of neatly folded Turk uniforms, he put it aside and gave a long sigh. "I assume your obligations to your country differ from those of a normal citizen? You're certainly doing a lot for its sake."

I jerked back from where I had been resting against the wall and pried the last box away from a stack of many. "Oh, didn't you know? When I say it's _my_ country, I really do mean that it's mine. My father is the head of Wutai." Nonchalant and nothing, I thought everyone knew that already. I wasn't really meaning to brag, but he glanced back at me long enough to show that he was truly startled. I shrugged. "You didn't think the princess would be just sitting down drinking tea and producing heirs and selecting a harem – kidding – did you? We're not so proud a people. And I prefer excitement to luxury, you know."

"I see." He was quiet for a moment.

A long moment.

"Don't let it bug ya, Vinnie, I'm not above befriending zombies." If I could have any more cheek, my face would probably explode.

"That was hardly my concern," he rasped, and put away another box. We stared at each other blankly for a moment. The room was in complete disarray, and we had found nothing except for a few nightsticks.

"We're never going to get out of here, are we?" I moaned.

When he didn't reply, I highlighted my lament by looking dolefully up into the ceiling, and was surprised to find that there was a vent there, the kind that fueled the company's cooling system and was found in nearly every room. Cloud had told us how he had used one once before to infiltrate the ShinRa headquarters in Midgard, so I was certain I could fit into one. I couldn't believe that I had missed it before. I could have probably stacked the boxes again and used those to climb, except all of their covers were off so I'd be sinking my feet into SOLDIER rations or Turk uniforms instead. I took my only other option.

"Hey, look," I grabbed the scruff of Vincent's cape and pointed upward. "I can get into that thing and get us out, but I'll need you to boost me."

He hesitated for a moment, and I wondered if he was still wary of my honesty, but before I could feel bad again he stood and brushed the dust from his pants. "All right." He crouched slightly underneath the vent and put together both hands (er, no, one hand and one claw) for me to place my foot on. I offered him a bright smile.

"Thanks, Vinnie. I won't run off and leave you, I promise."

"You shouldn't thank me," he answered right away, almost as if I had stabbed him with a hot poker. His blank face melted into something rueful and upset. "Whenever I reach out my hand to help someone, it scratches and tears the person instead."

I stared at him, putting his human hand over his claw in an effort _not_ to puncture me although he was scraping his knuckles instead, and decided that he had a _serious_ problem. I had one too. My heart was going funny on me, bleeding inside and making me regret being royalty, being a ninja, making me want to swallow this crush until it settled somewhere in my stomach and was never found again, and I forgot all the maybe's and found the why's. It's because of his smile and his sorrow and this silly notion I have that I can heal him, I can glue together all the broken bits inside him and make him something whole, make him _new_, and it's such a faraway dream but he _deserves_ it and sometimes I think I can give it to him.

Because the situation was far too urgent for drama, I jumped onto the cradle of his hands and kicked him lightly in the gut. He swayed on his feet, skinny frame rocking back and forth like a scarecrow in the wind.

"How's that for _pity_, you big zombie," I said, shifting aside the vent's metal grate and starting to climb in. Before I could disappear fully, I added, "When I thank you, you should accept graciously, and that's that."

_That's that. _It had been a long fall.

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A/N: ...I actually wrote this in May, and it is still the last chapter I have finished. I apologize for this chapter's incoherence. D: I _will_ try my darndest to finish this story, but once again expect the updates to take a while. I'm finding it hard to pace the story along (Yuffie has such a whirlwind POV, I tend to get lost). Hope you'll keep up with the story anyway. :D Thanks for reading. All of your comments and reviews are greatly appreciated.


	6. nobody's sidekick

A/N: After two long years, I've...finally been able to continue this thing. I'm sorry it took so long. D: My sincere apologies to everyone for the very long wait, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

**V. (Because I'm nobody's sidekick)**

There's a secret passage in my house full of cats where I keep some super-special materia – you duck behind a silk screen and there's a piece of wood in the wall that you can shift aside, and you need to hoist yourself up and crawl in really carefully. then turn left (turn right and you set off my ninja traps, which means you're catnip pronto), and then you continue straight ahead until you hit the treasure. I was so paranoid about that place that I checked it every week for half a year – paced through the short tunnel on my hands and knees and cradled the case of materia when I reached it. As a result, I have had infallible practice with worming my way through small, cramped tunnels.

Not that this makes the job any less uncomfortable. I coughed up a cloud of dust as I knelt over in the ShinRa air conditioning vent. Vincent's pale face looked up at me from below, and I gave him the thumbs up sign. "If I was wearing a skirt, I would have totally flashed you right now," I teased. He looked fairly aghast as he passed me the nightstick I had intended to take. "See you in a sec," I muttered, as I started to crawl away. The thing hadn't been used in ages; after five minutes my elbows and knees were already getting grimy – not that I'm prissy about dirt and stuff, but I'd prefer not to look like a garbage compactor when I faced the Turks. I felt ahead in the darkness, one nightstick in hand (switched off to conserve the energy for later), trying to find a grate that would lead me into the next room.

My fingers felt a slatted piece of steel, and I fastened my hands over and pried it carefully away. The drop down was a short one – a zillion dust bunnies bounced to the floor as I landed, and I coughed and shook my head to get rid of some particularly clingy flakes. It wasn't a room I had landed in, but a hallway. I backtracked to the door which seemed the best estimate of the direction I had come from, and knocked on it surreptitiously. There was no response. Meaning Vincent was _definitely _inside. I procured a pin from my underwear (they didn't have the sense to search _that_) and picked at the lock, turning it carefully when I knew it had broken.

Vincent was out the door before I had properly opened it, closing it behind him without a sound. "That was swift," he murmured. I attempted to smile modestly, but he didn't seem to notice. "It would be best if we could find our equipment first." He crept down the hallway, his funny metal boots surprisingly quiet, and I stretched out my arms while following him. If we were still in Wutai, I did not recognize this place at all. (It was only natural that I knew every itty bitty crevice of the place – it was my _duty_, as princess and all. And, well, okay, I had a bad stalking-eavesdropping-gossiping habit as a kid.) It had to be outside of the city. That, or underground.

If the place was really truly run by Turks, then either it was only temporary, or they were exactly as incompetent as everyone believed them to be – there weren't any guards all throughout the hallway, and most of the doors were unlocked, although when I poked my head in to check them out (after listening to make sure they were empty, of course) they were mostly full of crates. One room was full of blank computer screens. Another had a broken-down Cait Sith copy.

We dug around for a few minutes in every storage room, but his gun and my shuriken were nowhere in sight. This was troubling, because I didn't feel safe without my weapon, and I didn't know much about how to use a nightstick except that you swung it around and hoped that it would electrocute people, if it wasn't malfunctioning. Probably Vincent knew how to use it, being a walkin' talkin' Turkopedia and all, but he did not really seem to be in the mood to give me nightstick lessons. He strode on purposefully ahead, and I amused myself watching his big red cape swish, aware that the big part missing at the end of it was wrapped around my chest at the moment.

I was starting to think that the corridor was the kind of enchanted type that extended unto forever unless you found the trick to it, when Vincent stopped walking abruptly. I rammed into his backside and was about to hiss _owww_, because I had smashed my nose against his spine, but he had clamped his hand over my mouth and dragged the both of us against the wall.

I feigned irritation at the way he was holding me really, really close, and I mumbled something vaguely cooperative, like, "What, what's going on?" (Imagine me mentally shooting myself now.)

"Shhh," he whispered, in this really sexy – er, serious, way.

There was dead silence in the air for a few seconds, but I didn't really mind because a certain bittersweet _smell_ was wafting in the air, and I was trying to identify whether it was zombie-perfume emanating from Vinnie's hand when I realized it was just coffee. Suddenly, Reno's voice rang out, slightly muffled by the door but just as annoying as ever: "So, do you think they'll let us keep some of this, or what? I mean, it's kind of _a lot_, they probably won't miss it if I snitch one or two, right?"

I felt my heart start beating incredibly _fast_, as I realized with equal parts horror and glee that he was talking about the materia. _My _materia. Wait, scratch that. AVALANCHE's materia.

His lover answered, "Put them down, we're not supposed to do anything to them until we get more orders. I don't even know if we were able to retrieve all of them from the ocean." They had _retrieved some of them from the ocean? _I wanted to run in there and give them sloppy kisses. (After which I would punch them and take back what was rightfully _ours_.)

"Man you guys, are you really going to pass this up, I mean this Fire is practically fully-trained and I _know_ you could use some of this Ice materia –"

"_Shut up_, Reno." Biting and female. Elena.

"- because you're always so _cold_, hahaha." There were sounds like swishing, which I took to mean that Reno was making dumb gestures in the air as usual, and then more silence. More coffee smells. I was suddenly desperately hungry and thirsty, and craving a shower because I was dusty, (and also I kind of needed to pee), then subsequently pissed at myself for noticing these inconveniences. Vincent had pulled his hand away from my mouth some moments ago, when I was focused on listening, and was now contemplatively touching a fist against his lips.

"If it's just the three of them -" he started.

"- we can take them," I finished, grinning fiendishly with a confidence I probably did not have a right to have. Then again, if our weapons were in that room, and I was willing to bet a three-star cure they were, then it would be easy once we had gotten them. _If _we could get them. Of course we could. Because I was the Great Ninja Yuffie, and Vincent had a doom claw and could stare anyone into the ground, and I didn't know if Elena had ever seen him before (was that a yes? probably a yes), but if he could affect other girls (plus Reno because really, Reno is _a sissy_) the way he affected me, then the fight would practically be sold already, score.

That being said, it was entirely uncalled for when Rude briskly muttered "I gotta hit the can" and swung open the door just as Vincent had started to reach for the doorknob. He stared at us for a full minute, and we stared back at him, mute and rather shocked and unable to dive into action, because it didn't seem to be fair. Suddenly I was hella scared that we had been overconfident about all of this, that any moment now he would hit a big red button and Turks would come streaming at us from everywhere and we'd have to fight them off with freaking _nightsticks_ and to take my mind off this I attempted to decipher his expression from behind those badass shades, but at that moment he conveniently went "Shit!" and boom, the room unfroze; we rocketed into action.

Vincent had launched his normal fist towards Rude's face, but the man ducked to the left just in time, and was attempting to retaliate with one well-practiced uppercut, then I didn't know what happened anymore because I had dashed into the room and was fighting my own battle. "Rude, what – _oh shit!"_ Elena stood, spilling her coffee all over their papers, and started reaching for her gun, which was in her jacket, which was draped over the chair. I vaulted across their table, landing a few inches away from the corner where Reno had started to sputter around his cigarette. I aimed a punch at his gut and he sucked his stomach in just enough to miss it, then I had to do a double backwards somersault because Elena was already firing shots.

"Elena! For fuck's sake, be careful with that!" Reno yelped, as a bullet narrowly missed his ear. She ignored this, and continued to fire at me as I ran against the wall, swiveling my head right and left as I searched for our weapons. It was a small room, with just enough space for a table and a countertop with a microwave and a coffee maker. I skidded to a halt next to the doorframe, as Elena hissed under her breath and reloaded her pistol, and I moved into a backflip before I lost my momentum. I landed across the room, next to the sack of materia, but before I could check for any signs of the Conformer I had to twist sideways to avoid Reno's foot. He pulled his leg back so that it collided with my own turn kick, and we stayed locked in that position while Elena cocked her pistol at the pair of us.

"We're in a really small room, here," Reno was saying, as beads of sweat crept down his forehead.

"I'm _not gonna miss," _Elena answered sweetly, while I waved my hands, suddenly panicky, and said, "You don't wanna shoot little ol' _me_?"

I think she _would've_, too, except that Rude suddenly crashed back into the room, knocking against Elena, who banged into the table. Vincent tore in after him, swinging the nightstick expertly. Reno couldn't help whipping his head back to stare at them, and I took that moment to shove the nightstick out of his hand and do a sweep kick, knocking him flat on his back. I stamped once on his belly for good measure, and he spluttered. While Elena swore a blue streak and Rude regained his stance, rubbing at the blood on his cheek, I scrambled to the sack of materia and dug around in it, praying to Leviathan that our beloved weapons be there. At first I fumbled through nothing but shiny balls….then, suddenly, my hand connected with something that felt like –

"Vinnie, catch!" Without bothering to look back I tossed him the Death Penalty, and I heard it go clink in his hand while all three Turks cursed simultaneously. I immediately snatched up the Conformer and (instinctively) clicked in three materia, then I stood and arched my arm back, ready to throw it at any moment. Reno, who had started to dive for me again, saw this, hesitated, then stood still.

"We're not here to kill anyone," Vincent began. His voice could be pretty damn imposing when he wanted it to be. "We only want to take our materia and leave." I could have been imagining it, but his left cheek appeared to be slightly swollen, and this made me resent Rude terribly. He was holding the Death Penalty lightly, but we all knew that at such a close range he could _never _miss. As if we had rehearsed this, I bent down and reached for the sack of materia with my free hand, never breaking from my stance.

"Nobody move." I picked my way around Reno, resisting the urge to jab him for the fun of it, and stood next to Vincent. I could see now that Rude's shades were cracked, and Elena's face was scrunched up like she had just swallowed something incredibly sour. Vincent nodded his head in my direction, once, and we started to back out slowly, one step at a time.

"Damn terrorists," Elena muttered, but I could tell she was equally mad at herself.

"_Fellas," _Reno started to say. I saw Rude do this weird thing with his mouth that almost definitely meant _oh-god-Reno-don't-start-now_. "What makes you think we're the only Turks around? The alarm systems are bound to go off any time now, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want that to happen, considering this is the only Turk facility in Wutai –"

"Hold on a moment." I stared daggers into him. "_Turk facility in Wutai_? What the hell do you mean?"

"Yuffie," Vincent muttered. "There isn't time for this."

Reno and I both pretended we didn't hear that. "Well, we've got to keep our tabs on everywhere, don't we? I mean, I know this place is only good for family vacations now, and lame ones at that, but back in the day it posed a pretty big threat." I felt my ears thrum with white heat, although whether it was due to anger or shame, I couldn't tell.

"Whatever. This is just your freakin' _storage center. _There obviously aren't any _facilities_ in this thing, at least not since the last five decades." Okay, it was a lame comeback, and I was obviously making stuff up, but I was pissed (and still thirsty and hungry and in desperate need of a toilet). If he was being honest, I was making a desperate gamble right there, but I was so angry that I didn't particularly care.

Reno sneered back, and I think we would have had a wonderful game of sneering ping-pong, when suddenly the room was filled with smoke and big burly men and horrible, piggish laughter that made the pit of my stomach recoil with a disgust that was nauseatingly familiar – "Hii hii hii hii hii! I _knew_ there had to be more than just boxes in this little place – boys, grab those chickies!"

Vincent grabbed my arm and started to tug me out of the door – he had a hand over his mouth, and was tucking his cape over mine, so that I was nearly suffocating. _Sleeping gas?! _I kept a fast hold on the sack of material while the Turks muttered another string of expletives, and covered their own mouths. Suddenly we were all fighting our way through a mass of burly men in really gaudy clothes. It was exactly like a nightmare I had once about being sold to a gay bar to pay off Wutai's debts, only worse, because I could actually _feel_ the sweat and the stickiness and some pervert had the nerve to grope my bum in the confusion – he snapped his hand back and went, _"Wait, _the girl was _left behind_," and I was about to shout "I'm a girl too you bastard!" when we crashed into a wall. A big fat metal wall.

I was good at maneuvering in small, cramped, places, but that was mostly because I had a knack for getting into tight spots, which wasn't exactly a blessing. Vincent let go of my hand, and we both moved into fighting stances; in the struggling mass that was approaching us, I could see Rude and Reno knocking out people's teeth, and Elena clawing at the head boss himself with her impressive nails. I don't know how it happened, but we had reached a Dead End, and Don Corneo and his cronies were falling upon us.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. Your comments are always very greatly appreciated, especially with regard to the characterization of Yuffie, Vincent, and the Turks in this chapter - I haven't written Yuffentine in _ages_. D: Rest assured, I do intend to finish this fic - there are at most four chapters left, and hopefully they'll all be finished by the end of the year.


	7. butt ugly perverts

A/N: Oh dear. It's been half a year. Once again, my apologies for the wait, and I hope you enjoy.

**VI. (Because I hate butt-ugly perverts)**

Growing up, I was not a very obedient child, and at least five hundred times a day someone was barking at me, "Shut up, Yuffie!" "Stop that, Yuffie!" "Let go of those materia, Yuffie!" "Stop eating, you damn porky pie!", among other terms of endearment. My dad, who had long realized that merely _telling_ me to stop was futile, had resorted to threats in varying degrees of creativity. Among them was, famously, "I'm gonna sell you to the red light district if you don't stop (insert whatever horrible thing I was doing here)!" I actually even thought that was kind of cool – I mean, 'red light district' made me think of, I don't know, _cool_ things? Laser beams? Fire-breathing dragons, maybe? Shake had pissed himself silly when I told him that I thought so, and that evening he snuck me out of the Pagoda and let me see firsthand what my father had meant.

Not that I think he'd have a chance of selling me, anyway, never mind the fact that I'm (ahem) the princess, so they'd never buy me in the first place. I can't dance to save my life; my hips are about as static as Cloud's spikes after he's just gelled them. When I wear a sexy top I resemble a twiggy tree covered in shiny plastic bags, and anyway, my hair has always been cut short for convenience. I guess I'd only attract creepy perverts thinking I was a young boy, and even _that_ would be a stretch. That wasn't the first time I'd seen a man grope a woman, although when her robes started slipping down her shoulders Shake got a nosebleed and we had to rush back. My father's threats remained unsuccessful, but I was a little more thankful for my plush life after that. _Despite_ the hellish training.

Tifa had told me all about Cloud's escapade in Honeybee Manor (I laughed so hard I ended up hyperventilating), but I had known about Don Corneo even before that, not only because he had shipped out a lot of our best Wutaian…um, dancers, but because his ugly mug kept cropping up in tabloids everywhere. I was traveling by then (carrying out my Big Plan, if you will), and living half the time in forests me and caves (I swear, I talked to myself for hours on end, and it didn't seem weird at the time). I had to learn about what was going on by filching papers when people weren't looking, and there was always some new scandal involving him and love or money.

Then I met him in person.

I guess _meet_ isn't really the correct verb. It happened like this: I ended up in Midgar pretty early on after leaving Wutai – people down-on-their-luck _would_ end up in the slums, I suppose? – and I was hanging outside the restaurants, wondering if I could risk stealing some scraps, when Corneo and his henchmen entered the area and started skirtchasing. One of them caught me warily trying to edge away and offered me a position as a houseboy for the Honeybee – someone to pass messages, get the guests their drinks, bring tea or fresh underwear, that sort of thing – totally ignoring the fact that I was in short shorts and that I had _some_ degree of chest in my…well…chest. I made a quick and frantic exit, of course (Midgar was totally creeping me out, anyway), but not before hearing the snorting laughter, seeing the beady pig-eyes and the heaving chest that reminded me why exactly a red light district would _never_, in a million years, be cool.

I was thankful for exactly one thing at that moment, fenced in with Turks and perverts, and it wasn't that I had the luck to be stuck with Vincent, or that they all thought I was a boy anyway. It was that they had been using cheap sleeping gas (ninjas could tell these things, and _scoffed_ at them – we were the prime exporters of sleeping powder, after all), so I had enough time to smash two guys headfirst into the wall and slash another across the arm. Vincent got four, I think, and Rude and Reno weren't doing badly themselves until they realized that Elena had started screaming, "Guys, a little help!" She was already halfway down the corridor, away from us, and I was still being assaulted from every direction by sweaty muscles and neon spandex. (In fairness, each sweaty, lecherous face had been properly fitted with a mask to keep out the gas, which meant they had actually _planned this out. _A frightening idea.)

"Elena!" Rude and Reno screamed in unison. I think I was still conscious enough to think "Aww," at this rare display of Turk camaraderie, although my swipes were starting to get sluggish. My last one merely nicked my target on the shoulder – he leered and lunged for me, and I slipped out of the way and crashed into someone who was even more unattractive.

"Hey, there's _another_ girl," he said. Cleverly. I swung the heel of my palm at his nose and heard a satisfying crunch, although the next man coming up from behind me had already seized me by the shoulder before I could duck elsewhere.

"Boss! We've got another one!"

"No you don't," I screeched, kicking up backwards and catching him right where it hurt the most. By then my brain had gone a little fuzzy (being drugged in quick succession is hazardous to your health), and Vincent, looking impossibly paler, was shouting my name in an attempt to slap me back into consciousness. I could see some blotches of red, and I _knew_ that was him, and I think maybe he was trying to come towards me, but the corridor was quickly turning into a strange sea of human-like shapes. I could hear the Turks, shouting as if in slow motion, and heavy breathing all around. I was still swinging the Conformer at everyone I determined to be Not Vincent, but the next time I felt pressure on my wrist my vision had started to be crowded by dancing rainbow-colored chocobos, and I knew the gas had already gotten me.

"Yuffff -" Vincent's voice, swimming through my semi-conscious, echoing like some weird overtone to the polka playing that made the chocobos dance. (Hallucinatory sleeping gas? A new commodity, perhaps?) He was outnumbered, that much I could tell, although I was much more distracted by how uncomfortably close Don Corneo's voice was when he sniggered, in slow-motion, "Oooh, feistyyy. I liiike thoooose,"

This was a heartbreakingly embarrassing way to go.

_-xx-_

I woke up hot and sore and seeing spots, sweaty and smelly and _still_ – gawds – desperately needing to pee, something I had forgotten in the heat of the battle. I was tied up, wrists and ankles, but not gagged, thankfully. And I was leaning against something – someone, I realized, when I moved a little bit and that person went "Yow!"

"Elena?"

"I don't know how you know my name, _missy_, but I'll be damned if I'm making acquaintances with AVALANCHE."

"Well, if you'd prefer Turk Bitch, that's cool with me, too. And I'm Yuffie."

"Ninja girl."

Uh-_huh_. "Where are the guys?"

"Those useless dudes? I have no idea what that Big Ol Perv did with them –" we both shuddered bodily at the mention of him – "But they're not here, that's for sure. He isn't interested in guys anyway. Not even your pretty vampire friend."

"Vincent's not here?" If they'd just left him alone after beating him up (oh _hell hell hell, _they'd better have left his face alone), he would definitely recover in a few hours time. I felt my chest clutch. The materia – the materia had been left when I dropped it somewhere against the wall, top tied so that they wouldn't go rolling out; if he had recovered them, if Don Corneo hadn't noticed them or if he'd noticed but hadn't cared, Vincent would definitely have _found_ them and taken them back to AVALANCHE, to Cloud and sweet Tifa and everyone else who probably utterly _hated_ me and my guts by then, and they'd have no more reason to stay, nothing more to do with me. I was going to be abandoned and then turned into the ugliest sexy dancer in the Honeybee _ever_, bruised and possibly suffering kidney stones. It was a vision so horrible I felt tears coming on. And, well, the idea that I'd lost my most wonderful temporary friends forever and ever – _that_ was a major blow, too.

"Obviously. I didn't even know sleeping gas would have an effect on him. Since he's all coffin-like."

_And probably his nose is dead, _I added. He had been calling my name. Would he really abandon me? "What's this they've got us tied up with?" Changing the subject was good. Crying, even if Elena couldn't see me, would just about force me to expire in shame.

"Small chains," she answered.

"Great. And we wouldn't happen to be in the local edition of the Honeybee, now, would we?"

"Your territory." I stifled at this; Wutai _should_ have been my territory. I was still getting my ass kicked in it. "We're still in Wutai, in any case. I was out four hours, I think." _Very_ cheap sleeping gas. "I've been waiting for you to wake up three." Me? Knocked out seven hours from _cheap _sleeping gas? Maybe she was twisting the facts. I coughed and hooked my fingers over the chains knotted over us, wondering if there was a way to get them undone.

"Right. So. Are we going to come up with a plan, or do you actually know how to do a belly dance?"

"Well, you know, I was thinking that if there _was _actually a way to get us free, I might have done it hours ago? Just for the fun of it? Duh." Carrying a conversation with someone so obviously bitter at the world made my head hurt.

"Look, I'm getting sick of your sarcasm. Do you want to become the latest addition to his whores, or don't you?" There were moments when I found I could be commanding if I wanted to be. Maybe my royal blood was good for something after all?

She heaved a sigh, and for the first time I noticed there was a tremor in her voice. "Don't, of course. I-I'm just tired, okay? Yeah. We need to get out."

I was tired as hell, too, but I didn't plan on being the useless one this time around. There was a thoughtful silence as I sifted in my head for ideas. "We could get to the door if we work together."

"By sliding on our butts?"

"Uh." If that was the only option. "Yeah."

"And then?"

"Then…" Hopefully they'd left it unlocked? Not likely, if they'd had the foresight to use chains to tie us up, but I was a big believer in possibility. Even if I had yet to work out how to open the door when my hands were tied behind my back. "We'll see when we get there."

Elena responded with a grunt that sounded somewhat approving, and so we shifted and slid and wriggled (on our butts,_ fine_) towards the exit with what seemed like agonizing slowness. We should have spared ourselves the shame, because halfway across the room the door flung open and in stepped our gracious captor, round belly heaving as he aimed his gaze at us.

"Where to, chickies?"

I stared at him sullenly, too disgusted to reply. I was pretty certain Elena was doing the same.

"Not so talkative now? I could have sworn you were both screaming my ears off earlier. Hohi hohi!" He had to grasp his belly when he laughed, it jiggled so much it looked like an aerobic exercise in itself. He turned to one of the burly men that seemed to follow him in endless supply. "That was a good one, right?"

"Yeah, boss." They both laughed. The other cronies around guffawed politely.

"Now darlings," he continued, clutching at his side after the laughter had turned into awkward silence (so quickly, I almost felt pity for him). "I don't _like_ hurting you. I just need you to be more – cooperative? After all, girls who fight don't get customers. Hohi, hohi, hohihi!" He paced around us, circling us in a manner more comical than menacing. "Though I must admit, either one of you are _exotic_ enough to merit a little forgiveness. Blonde," he noted, thoughtfully, and I could imagine Elena's face crinkling with horror. "That's rare. Almost like that sweet, beautiful girl in the purple dress, weeks ago." He sighed, deep with longing. I had a fleeting vision of Cloud in drag, and snorted. At the sound, he turned his attention to me.

"And this one. Boyish. Some people like that, you know. You've also got some fine Oriental features." It might have been a complement if the speaker had been – well, anyone but _Don Freakin Corneo. _"Now let's just try to get along, eh? It's gonna be a _while_ to Midgar, and I'm not even sure I want my vacation here to end yet. There might _still_ be some pretty prizes hanging around." He leaned his face close to mine, smiling genially. I resisted the urge to spit into his eyes. Suicide was a far more graceful alternative then dying at the hands of an obese pimp.

"Let them go," he said suddenly, addressing the nearest slave. He gave a disgusting little clap-clap of his palms.

"Boss?"

"You heard me. I don't want their skin to get all raw from the chains. It's ugly."

"But – sir –" I noticed how the man had thick nail-scratches on his face; he had probably had the misfortune of handling Elena. One of his eyebrows was sporting a bruise, too. "These girls –"

"No no, don't worry. They won't fight back. Oh, I'm sure they'd _love_ to, but the outcome wouldn't be any different. As you can see, girlies, I've got too many men for you to handle." He laughed again at his creepy pervy joke. I threw up in my mouth and had to swallow, and I could hear Elena hiss through her teeth. I half-expected him to be joking, but the idiot crony had obediently bent down and was now letting the chains clink against each other as he undid them. I began desperately trying to come up with a better plan for when my hands were free. Beating the crap out of everyone seemed out of the question, because I was so _tired_. The man undid our ankles first, then glanced again warily at Don Corneo, who gave a quaint little nod, before undoing the chains around our wrists.

"There. Much better. Stand up. Both you girlies." He motioned, and Elena and I were gripped from behind and forced to stand. I had no idea where we were – either I had been away from Wutai longer than I imagined, or Godo's security had gotten pitifully lax. He stepped close, closer, and I could smell his breath, icky-garlic and beer, like he'd eaten solely at the bar the past few days and had forgotten to pick his teeth. "So. Which one should I try first? I'd always sort of liked the _ambiguous _ones."

He was looking at me. Me? _Ambiguous?_ Oh gawds, I was so going to knock his teeth in. He was shoving his hips forward, almost unconsciously, a repulsive motion that made my blood boil.

"But _blonde_. I haven't had blonde in ages." He licked his lips, directing his little hip-shoving dance to Elena now, and we had probably shuddered so much in the past ten minutes that our collective shudders could start an earthquake.

"It's so hard to choo – oo – oose!" Hips shoved at me, hips shoved at her. Hips shoved at me. Hips shoved at her. Hips shoved at me – "All right. I think this one's the way to go! Cheerful. Saucy. Exactly my type!" And the hips coming closer, closer, so horrifyingly _gross_ that I was going to retch all over the floor. I'd seen horrifying monsters and I'd seen Sephiroth and the bright red blood of countless dead in ShinRa, in Wutai, everywhere, and _still _the repulsiveness of this man could get to me. I couldn't help myself. My leg kicked out before I could stop it, sailing straight into his stomach, knocking him backwards and causing him to go "D'oof!"

Elena shouted "You idiot!" but she didn't need to, really. I knew I had done the wrong thing even before we were once again tied up, taken away, and dangled from the rock face of Da Chao, were the stony floor a gazillion meters away promised a dry, crunchy death if we happened to fall.

Wait. What?

* * *

A/N: You have full permission to kill me for not getting this out sooner. x_x With any luck, I will have it finished by the end of May. Old readers, thanks as always for your patience, and new readers, hi there, hope you enjoyed the story so far! I apologize for the shift in tone with the more recent chapters - it was the two year hiatus that did it. Comments are always greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.


	8. save the day

**VII. (Because for once I don't get to save the day)**

It was the worst sort of déjà vu. All the way to the top of the mountain I was recalling how it had happened to _me_, once, long ago – what stupid thing had I done? Stealing from the royal treasury? Probably the first time, since that definitely wasn't the last? Squashing one of Godo's precious koi in a moment of miscalculated ninja-play in our house, and making the mistake of offering to steam it for dinner? When I first tried to run away (nine years old, _beat that_) and subsequently came back home, fueled by equal parts love and rage? We had started one of our most impressive fights ever, which ended with me resolutely saying I would never-in-a-million-years return, let alone bear him any grandchildren. Oh, that was a blow. Maybe that was it. Staniv and Chekhov had hauled me by the armpits, kicking and screaming, and secured me so that I dangled for a grand total of fifteen minutes until I started weeping and promised I wouldn't say such horrible things ever again, tears and snot trickling down into my mouth.

(That didn't stop me from moving out anyway, two years and a lot more training afterwards, but Godo was probably sick of dealing with me by then, so it was more of a relief than a bother.)

Having been in that position before didn't make it any less horrible. Climbing up the mountain was _way _different from being hung from it and threatened with death. I was _hysterical_. It's not only the height, the oppressive whooshing wind, or how the eyes of Da Chao's several heads are ridiculously big up close and really more malevolent than maternal. This is _the_ worst case scenario for anyone born, bred and Wutai-fed, from tales and legends and the faint reminder that executions in the olden days were much more grisly than they needed to be, and here I was again, reliving the nightmare.

"You were asking for it, chickie-chick! I don't like it when girls start messing with the Don!" He was standing on one of Da Chao's palms, dancing on the curved fingers, swaying from side to side. I wished the fingers would crumble and that he would inevitably end up scattered on the sands below, all sizzling fat and limbs. He'd _touched_ me, when they carried us up the mountain, smacked my bottom and pinched all over, harder and harder with a slimy vindictiveness. Elena and I did not stop running our mouths, but nobody heard us – we had been so close to the base of the mountain, in some house long abandoned, where he'd amassed a frightening amount of sake that he was planning to take back to the Manor. We were goners.

To our credit, at least, we refused to go down quietly. Elena had not stopped shouting "I'm a Turk! You can't _do_ this to me!" and I had rattled on about ninjas and The Wrath of Leviathan and, GROSSNESS GROSS GROSS when I'm out of here you're gonna have to hide in your pants, you damn lecher! But it had been way too long (minutes? Like hours, dragging hours), we were weakening, my throat was raw and it was such a long, long, horrible way down.

He took advantage of a lull in our screaming. "Now if you continue to refuse me, when I've treated you _oh so well, _you're going to go splat, and it won't be my fault! Hohihi!" He'd added a little rocking motion to his hip-shoving dance, and was currently swinging his body forward left and forward right. "I've got a nice big pad waiting at the hotel, and it ain't been used yet! What say you?"

I felt like shouting _over my dead body_, but the idea that it was so eerily possible. Instead I cried out, "Let me down! When my –" friends? No. No, _what_ friends? "- Father hears about this, he'll –"

"He won't have time to do anything, sugar! Those aren't ordinary ropes. Hee-haw!"

I spotted something twinkling between his fat fingers, and it was metal and square and looked suspiciously like a remote control, oh _gawds_ – "Don't!" I couldn't see Elena, but her voice thundered across the mountains, loud enough to shatter glass. "No! God!" If I thought _I _was hysterical, she sounded practically delirious. "Whatever you – I – just – let us down!" Rattling sounds. I had strained against the binds myself, but nothing was working, and I knew my skinny arm would be rubbed down to the _bone_ if I continued. Corneo's evil was its own brand of putrefying.

"What's that? You're ready to please me now? Well, if you insist, Blondiekins!"

Elena gave a half-hearted yell, not consenting but not totally rejecting either, and to my horror I found myself weighing the options in my head, wondering if there was any way I could fall and _not _get my neck broken – double somersaults? Teleportation spells? But it would be too fast, I'd be screwed, they'd have to scrape me off the earth with picks –

"That's as far as you get, Corneo!"

I could recognize that voice even through my panic, the crazy pain in my joints, my suddenly resurfacing need of a ladies' room. Cloud had always launched into battles with rather cheesy lines, and this time was no exception.

Don Corneo had frozen in mid-gyrate, very much surprised. "Who – who's there? What's going on?"

And suddenly they were all over the place, Cloud with his monster of a blade at the ready, Tifa still pummeling one of Corneo's cronies halfway to Sunday (he'd spread them out all over the mountainside). Barrett was firing rounds all over the place, and if I hadn't been in my position I would have probably shrieked for him to stop it because Da Chao had been _hell _to carve and Godo would never let me hear the end of it if he woke up one day and found that our monument had been suddenly disfigured. Red XIII's tail, firelit and lashing as he tensed and growled at Corneo, now looking ready to piss his pants. Cait Sith shouting something useless and encouraging, bouncing in place with unabashed excitement. Aeris, rod gripped tight and _glowing_, and I could see clearly now, there was _materia _in it again, sparkly and shiny and unmistakably theirs, and –

They had come back for me? _Had they come back for me? _Was I hallucinating, or did Cloud really just have a bone to pick with Corneo, or could it be that Vincent -

Flowing across the rock face, cape streaming like a river, his gun out and ready to fire, and it was he who said, tombstone-gravelly, "Let the girls go, Corneo."

"You're outnumbered, buddy," Tifa shouted. I was seized with the incredible urge to embrace her and squash myself against her giant breasts, but then I remembered that there was a big possibility she'd shove me away. I had betrayed them. I had stolen – but their materia was _back_ – why were they even here?

"I remember you," Corneo said, almost trancelike. "And you." He looked at Aeris. "And you –" I couldn't tell if it was my imagination, but it seemed like Cloud had suddenly been struck by a Petrify spell – "You're the ones that killed my Apps! My darling pet! Oh, I'll never forgive you." The pimp had paced backwards, standing disconsolately on the edge of Da Chao's palm, staring down into certain death in an attempt to look tragic. It didn't work, with his quivering belly. "I suffered so much after that. Oh, you don't know what hardships I went to. Forced to look for girlies _elsewhere, _and the travel fees!"

"I don't _care_," Cloud was getting more menacing these days. I was suddenly afraid as heck of being set free – how would he lecture me? What would he say? And I would rather be swallowed up by the earth then let Aeris turn a disapproving eye on me. Or Tifa. Or anyone, really. _You should have thought about that before you stole their material, then, you stupidstupidstupid girl and you _deserve _to be on this rock face, you deserve to be crushed beneath it. _"Let Yuffie and Elena go, and maybe we'll go easy on you."

"I see." Don Corneo had straightened up and turned back to face Avalanche, who were spread out and posed pretty enough for a postcard. (That that idea could even enter my head, I don't know, but I was so _tired_, and dehydrated, the sun was _scorching -_) "I see, oh I see." It seemed like an awfully odd response to Cloud's spiel. "So you're serious. That's good. That's very good. This isn't the time for me to be fooling around, either. I'll teach you that those who kill my precious pets don't go without _paying. _You're going to play with my _new _precious, and that'll make you stop interfering with my plans to get a new wh – wife!"

He'd raised his hands skyward, suddenly, and we all found ourselves craning our necks up, staring into the bright sun as he shouted, "RAPPS, COME HERE!"

And there it was, descending in front of him like some miraculous living shield, purple scales and leather-green wings, a skinny slender dragon that screeched and roared and how the hell did he _breed _these things? A tiny portion of my mind twittered _it's way too cool for someone like Corneo_ but suddenly the dragon gusted one wicked Aero spell at everyone and for a moment it felt like the wind was going to rip my face to shreds, but right before the impact something shimmered before me and I saw Aeris casting, her magic light green over everyone as she rattled off a Shell spell with unbelievable speed.

She'd saved me. But she'd saved Elena, too, probably, Aeris had a bleeding heart and could hold no grudge against the world, not against me – I wasn't even supposed to be thinking of myself, it was a disgusting thing to be so selfish. Red XIII had launched himself at the monster, spinning and giving it a thick lash with his tail, jumping back just at Barrett pummeled a dozen bullets into it. It screeched, flailed, hovered close to Barrett and Cloud, and whipped them both across the faces with its jagged tail. Cloud cried out, the stone of Da Chao's hand got splashed with blood, Tifa gave a yell of rage and the dragonthing was immediately struck with a fierce Bolt spell. Then she'd been attacked by another Aero, not even Aeris' Shell could keep her from losing her footing and slipping – Caith Sith caught her just in time, and she swung herself back up again while Cloud leapt forward and slashed at the dragon.

It flew out of the way, flapped both wings out violently – one of them struck Cloud in the shoulder. He fell in a sudden burst of green as Aeris cast something curative on him. Cait Sith had blasted it with an ice spell – one wing was broken, it was flapping half-heartedly, Don Corneo was shouting at it to "KILL THEM, KILL THEM YOU STUPID THING!" He didn't need to yell – it was already giving its best effort. Barrett doubled over after suffering two more of its lashes, Aeris was leaning over him; Cloud was glugging down a potion. Meanwhile Vincent had managed to get a good shot in the beast's chest and it squealed, blood streaming out in jets, just as it directed its fiercest windspell at him and he sailed through the air at lightning speed. I couldn't see him past the huge chunk of Da Chao's nose to my left, but I heard him smack into the cliff wall, and my insides rose in an agonized chorus of _oh please let him be safe_.

Then almost too quickly the dragon was falling, tumbling down, unable to keep itself airborne any longer. I didn't know who dealt the finishing blow. Tifa and Red had both fallen flat against the rock surface, to keep the wind from its last frantic wingbeats from wiping them off. Aeris had cast something over herself and the knocked-out Barret. Cait Sith, like Vincent, was nowhere to be found. Cloud's sword was all smeared with red, but he was standing, hardly shaking, and he was walking closer to Don Corneo, who raised both hands and squeaked "Wait! Just wait a second –"

"SHUT UP!" Cloud roared, and I felt so miserable and guilty they had had to suffer that battle while I just hung there dangling like the worst set of eyelashes Da Chao could ever have.

Don Corneo refused to stop yabbering. "No! You think I'm going to plead for my life, don't you? You think I'm going to swallow my pride and get down on my knees and _grovel – _don't you?" Clearly, his unfaltering boldness confused everyone, myself included. Cloud was advancing on him, but I could see his hand raised, his fat button closing down tight around something in his fist. "Well I would never do that, you bastards and bitches. Because I'm still going to win!"

Suddenly I found myself spinning sideways, rotating around in a circle, hands and feet still perfectly bound. Instead of staring at the cliffbottom I was suddenly staring up at the sky, all blue and sunlight and it was Wutai's fresh cleansweet atmosphere, all wrong now that my blood was rushing to my head. I could see my kneecaps just barely, and my boots. Elena still had the energy to scream, somewhere on the other side of Da Chao's face. I was dizzy. I was gonna vomit all over my own forehead. Was that even physically possible?

"If I push this button they're going to fall upside down, and well have Squashed Girly Tomatoes. You won't be able to tell their heads from their necks!"

"Damn!" I couldn't see him anymore, but that was Cloud, always so easy to read. I don't even know why he parleyed anymore. _AVALANCHE_. They were all a big bunch of tender idealistic hearts and I knew, I knew they knew, they were still doing _this_ for me. For me, and I hadn't been with them four months, I'd poked fun at everyone, I'd gotten seasick and useless on every single vehicle we'd ridden, I'd forced them to brave Wutai's cliffs and mountains without any magic. For me, and for _Elena_, their enemy, who'd turn them in to authorities ten seconds flat and counting.

"You'll give me your women too," I could practically hear him dribbling for Tifa through his words, "Or it's Goodbye, Girly-girlets, Hello Cliff Bottom! You understand?"

Somebody shifted.

"Don't move!" He squealed, and there were traces of panic in his voice.

"You're the one who shouldn't move, you fat bastard. We're going to make you so sorry you came here and got _us _involved –"

"Reno!" Elena shouted.

"Too late!" Corneo screamed in reply, and there was an almost comical chorus of "NO!"

Suddenly I was tumbling through the air, freefalling, white numb, spit spiraling from my mouth as I went to join dear old Rapps down below, and it had been a brief but rather eventful life, even if the last few hours of my life had been craptastic. Goodbye mother, whom I never knew, goodbye o absent father of mine, goodbye Pagoda, goodbye AVALANCHE, goodbye future involving Nibelheim and coffins and someone tall dark and dead, goodbye sweet country, Wutai, blessed earth that is _mine,_ I killed myself for you and you never knew. I was sixteen.

I was freaking sixteen and _shit _I was going to _die _the worst way possible –

"NOOOO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GAWDS I DON'T WANNA DIIIIIEEEE -"

I sang through the air. I sank through the air. Something caught me and we rushed down towards death together, it was all red wind whipping around me only it wasn't wind. I wasn't sinking. I was floating not quite like a feather but it was _still_ better than hurtling towards certain doom, and there was only one thing that wore red like blood and destruction and beauty.

"Stop screaming, Yuffie, you're going to turn me deaf."

It was probably the most embarrassing thing I had ever done, ever, and with the last person I wanted to be caught doing embarrassing things by (with?), but I had just missed death by _milliseconds_, none of those dumb things mattered_._ Knight in leatherblack vampiresilly armor he wasn't, and I'd already ditched the princess dream eons ago, but I was _alive_, he was apparently not dead, and Corneo wouldn't stand a chance with everyone up there. I flung my arms around his neck and wept like the biggest baby this side of Gaia.

Thank Leviathan he let me.


	9. my loyalties lie

**VIII. (Because I know where my loyalties lie)**

I did not stop crying, not even when we had safely hit the ground, drifting to a slow and delicate stop right on one of Da Chao's big toes. When my feet touched the earth I sort of sagged to the floor, suddenly a bundle of skin and limp bones, all the fatigue and fear getting the best of me, only since I was still wrapped around Vincent he was forced to sag with me. I sobbed and sniffled and somewhere in the back of my mind I was vaguely registering the fact that he had patted me on the shoulder once or twice in a failed attempt at comfort, and now that the first few waves of panic were receding I was beginning to forget what exactly I was crying _for_. Everything was a mess, I had made most of that mess, and I didn't even get to redeem myself fixing things.

To my credit, I tried saying something. I opened my mouth, made sounds that resembled gurgling, then realized that I felt sick to my stomach and was going to throw up (no! Not on _Vincent!_). I pressed my lips closed again, and he probably saw, thinking it was fear or worry, so he leaned in closer. Maybe he wasn't whispering but it sounded that soft and gentle anyway: "Don't force yourself to talk right now." Good advice. I decided to just continue invading his personal space, eyes running a marathon, and _fudge_ had he really been this warm all the time? Maybe it was the sun. Maybe it was the adrenaline from getting pummeled by a crazy flying scaly thing. Maybe it was because I was embarrassing him with my own lack of self-respect, I didn't know and couldn't be bothered to care at the moment.

I was still crying a few minutes later when the whole of AVALANCHE rushed down Da Chao carrying a horribly disfigured Don Corneo, trailed by a good number of also-bloodied-henchmen.

"She's alive!" Cait Sith declared to the world, and they moved toward me, one massive throng of warm happy people and I couldn't _possibly _face them _now, _so I cried even harder into Vincent. Through my hiccupy tears I saw Barret and Cid moving away to talk with the Turks – Rude and Reno were flanking Elena in a strange sort of parental way, and I was trying to figure out where the hell Cloud was because _oh man _he was so going to have my ass, when Aeris gently lifted me off poor put-upon Vincent (now with a tear-soaked front), went "Oh Yuffie, your _wrists,_" and promptly started healing them.

"Is she all right?" Tifa approached us, sweaty all over – I could see her arms were full of scratches from where she had grazed the cliff during the battle, but she was still a beautiful sight, and it took a physical effort for me not to embrace her while Aeris was still casting Cure all over me (and it wasn't even the scrapes and bruises that _hurt_, dammit, it was my pride and my ego and my wishes for Wutai and just – _everything_ – and I realized, it wasn't just pain, it was also happiness because why the hell were they being so nice to me? _Why?_) These two were the Mommy I never had and I didn't deserve their big sisterly cooing.

"Th–th-thank. S-s-sorry." I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. "Thank y-you, gu-guys. Thank you. I'm, I'm – _shit_ – I'm s-so s-sorry, I mean, you know what I did -" I glanced around desperately for Vincent, who was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, watching me with wary eyes. He had forgiven me, right? But only if I kept my word, and now he was making sure I apologized to AVALANCHE, to everyone else. "I didn't mean to do it, I – well, I guess I wasn't thinking that, at first, but it's different now and I'm sorry and it will never happen again, I'm sorrysorry s-sorry and oh _man_ I was so goshdamned useless in that battle, sorry f-for everything." I got back down on my knees and ducked my head and it was truly the most magnificent _dogeza_ I had ever done. If Gorki had been there to see it he would have wept.

"Yuffie! You don't have to apologize for getting kidnapped!" Tifa had stooped and was trying to pull me up. "Oh god, please tell me Corneo didn't do anything to you, that _bastard_. Or did the Turks –"

"What?" I looked up at her, more disbelieving than I probably should have been.

"It was unexpected. We didn't think they'd go for you. I mean, not a lot of people come out to Wutai, even…" she trailed off, seeing my mouth gaping high enough to fit the sky. _Did that mean_ –

I snapped my head around to look for Vincent, but he had promptly floated elsewhere. _He hadn't told them. He didn't tell them. Oh gawds he didn't tell them they don't know, they don't know what I did._ Tifa took advantage of my semi-dazed state and gently took hold of my arms, pulling me upright. "Come on, Yuff, it's going to be all right. You're safe. Don't worry. It's going to be okay now."

"I've been meaning to fight with that guy for some time, anyway." Cloud had suddenly come over to us and was smiling genially, blue eyes twinkling and _gawds_ he was so going to be my First Crush forever. I felt my insides sinking like a defective submarine. _They don't know_. "You okay? That was a pretty rapid drop back there, it's a good thing Vincent caught you when he did. I seriously thought – well – but you look fine, you didn't break anything, right?"

Besides my pride and my heart, Cloud? No, I'm fine thank you. I wanted to scream at them to stop looking at me so concernedly because _dammit, _ninjas are not supposed to feel guilt. They're supposed to have cool heads and be all badass and _I work alone, one with the shadows_, but here I was with snot on my upper lip, wanting to kiss the heck out of five people, a stuffed cat and a furry talking lionthing, resisting the urge to bite my tongue off because I was a traitor and they had _no clue_. Everything was coming up roses.

And I was going to destroy it, wasn't I, because it was the honorable thing to do. I wasn't going to take all their sympathy sitting down, and if they weren't going to beat me up for the truth, I knew _I _would never forgive myself. They had to know. I had to tell them.

I opened my mouth and went, "No, you d-don't get it, that's not what I –"

"You can tell us everything later, all right?" Aeris had slipped a comforting arm over my shoulders, and was starting to steer me in the direction of the city. "First we need a proper medic for everyone, just to be safe, and some food and rest."

I shut my mouth. I intended to tell them. Definitely. But food and drink and a _bathroom, _first, did not sound like a bad idea. We trooped into my city, me still trying to figure out what the hell had happened the past twentysomething hours. It hit me, as Aeris helped me along and somewhere in the background Corneo let out a distraught wail, that this was my first time back in Wutai in almost two years.

It was _so_ not the grand homecoming I had planned.

_-xx-_

I was still too worried and guilty to talk to _anyone _properly, even if I was dying to know everything. Luckily, people patched the story up for me over dinner – mostly Tifa, with Cait Sith and Aeris adding in stuff she forgot. How they had freaked out when they realized we had disappeared. Then freaking out further when they realized all their materia was missing (I choked on my sushi – _sushi from the Tavern, _I had missed this terribly, especially in those weeks of lying in forests munching on whatever sprouted that did not look too poisonous). They had just barely managed to drag themselves through the arched gates of Wutai when Vincent appeared, with all their materia, telling them we had been nabbed by the Turks and then stolen away by Don Corneo, and how he had no where I was. They ran into Rude and Reno across the big bell, trying to get a tracking signal from Elena's PHS, and decided that for everyone's benefit they would hold off the fighting til next time.

Then they had searched through Wutai, found one of the Corneo cronies (they were hard to miss, flashy pimp clothing and all), and used less-than-friendly methods to get the location out of him before racing up to Da Chao. Where they fought Rapps, while Rude and Reno tried to get a clear shot at Corneo ("He kept dancing around!" Tifa growled). Reno wasn't able to hold back and charged at him in the end, anyway, and I was well on my way to becoming a squashed human tomato (apparently his remote couldn't release us simultaneously), Elena soon to join me, when Rude finally managed to blast him with a bazillion tranquilizers. And the rest, as I knew, was too-close-for-comfort history.

There were ShinRa soldiers in Wutai chasing after Corneo (he had flown here via an illegally "borrowed" jet, after various run-ins and close encounters involving drugs, deaths, and prostitutes, among everything else good kids don't do) – Cloud, after a brief sojourn into Business, came back to tell us, looking fairly upset. AVALANCHE was still a terrorist group (never mind the fact that they're really _heroes_) to all public (legal? political?) knowledge, so the Turks took the trouble of turning him in while we stuffed ourselves silly with beer and sashimi and ebi-furai. I had taken off my bandanna and combed my bangs out over my face so that no one would recognize me, but I shouldn't have bothered – AVALANCHE formed a protective cocoon around me anyway. Almost unconsciously. I felt sick.

"Well! I guess that's the end of our adventures here, then – we'd better get a move on. Maybe we can take a look around town tomorrow." Cloud was enjoying his sake a little too much – fighting off beasts for more than a day did that to you, I guess. "This place – Wutai – it's so…different. I haven't been here in…" He blinked. "Have I ever even been here?" There was a weird silence as we all tried to figure out if it was Cloud or the alcohol talking, then Tifa saved him by thumping him on the back and saying, "Cloud, come on, you can't be wasted _already_!" and while they were all guffawing at that (although I caught the concerned look between Tifa and Aeris, a split-second of _oh no_) I slipped away, out of the Tavern, to where Vincent was being his anti-social brooding self. (He wasn't there during dinner, but nobody seemed to mind, and it was an extreme relief to me because it gave me the chance to get to the bottom of this myself.)

"You didn't tell them." Wasn't even a question, nuh-uh, and for once I was more concerned about sorting this out then marveling at his inhuman moonlit beauty.

He leaned back against the wall, finely carved profile doing its best to distract me. "We were in a hurry. There wasn't enough time before we found you."

I resisted the urge to stamp my foot. "Don't give me that crap! Gawds, Vinnie, it's either you admit _right now_ that you're being really nice, or you tell me what the catch is. Because we _both _know what I did was wrong. You totally told me off for being a traitor, it's what I was." _What I was. Am. WAS, am no longer._

"We got our materia, and we're all safe." I hated that patronizing tone in his voice, hated what his eyes did when they focused on me, all glossy dark red like the most expensive wine. "I'm certain you realize now how much faith these people place in trust. Camaraderie. And you won't repeat the same mistakes. Right?"

Would I argue back? _How are you so sure? _"Of course not." Losing, _me, _losing. I could never have won under these circumstances. That, or I had become as soft as Red XIII's fur. AVALANCHE had turned me into a ball of butter. Margarine. _Mush_. And not even Vincent had escaped them, apparently. Mr. I-Don't-Play-Drinking-Games and Don't-Touch-Me, he who would probably make a better ninja than me, the way he was always slipping gracefully into the dark. Me, I sort of crashed into it and bullied it into covering me.

"I think you would know best what kind of retribution you deserve," Vincent continued. Ah. Of course. Words from the expert. "If you still want to tell them, you may. But that's not what we saved you for."

"You could have told them." Now I was angry. Why didn't he? So that I wouldn't have to myself, so that, so that, I don't know. So that – I wouldn't have this niggling voice in the back of my head – _it's always been about pride, _I had told him, he knew that, he knew that, he knew what it meant to me.

"Yuffie." He drifted close. I don't know even if his feet touched the floor, the way he moved was like music, floating through the air. "They would have saved you, even if they knew. We would have saved you."

_You would? _I wanted to ask, but it was a stupid question. _You know them by now. _I wanted to weep at the truth of it, but I'd cried enough that afternoon, my eyes were tired. I stood in silence and stared at my shoes and shivered in the chilly Wutai wind, not quite as blistering as how it had been near the top of Da Chao, but still pretty damned cold. My back, suddenly aching with the wounds I had forgotten all about, where his fingers had scratched me. He'd been careful the second time, even if I was probably falling at a faster speed. He'd been so gentle, catching me like that. I hadn't even noticed.

I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding. "Yeah."

When I looked back up at him, there was something flitting across his face that might have been a smile. Just something grazing the tips of his lips, something almost soft in his eyes. And I realized it was silly of him to have saved me – I felt as if I had hit the rocks beneath Da Chao, anyway, the way the blood rushed to my head and the wind got knocked out of me. I hoped, faintly, that the night was at least providing some cover to the blush that burnt across my face like wildfire. I turned around and made for the bar, afraid that I might just do something crazy (the idea of _kissing_ lasted in my head for approximately two seconds) if we stayed there staring at each other. Halfway through my turn I paused and said, "Drinking games with us?"

He said nothing, so I shrugged and continued walking. Then I had to suppress a laugh when I heard his doomshoes going _clack-clack_ behind me.

_-xx-_

That night, when even Aeris had turned peach across her cheeks, and everyone was happily murmuring in their beds, and Vincent had drifted to his eyes-half-open state, I took my shuriken, took the materia that was actually (as in honestly) _mine_, then crept away to Da Chao to get the finest apology I could possibly offer. The cave was burning hot when I entered, the flames several feet high, licking the stone of the roof. I was drenched in sweat before I took even two steps in. I had fumbled for the only way through in my short pockets, clutching the precious object (only one of its kind, and one of the few gifts Godo had ever given me that I didn't have to earn through blood, sweat or tears) in my sweat-slick hands.

"Leviathan," I spoke steadily at the fire. "Listen to me. Cease your burning. I've come to take you away." I lifted the scales up higher, letting them glint over the fire, then I squeezed my eyes shut and threw them straight into the most roaring flickers of it. It _swallowed_ the sparkling object, sputtered down to nothing, til it was just cinders and ash and the salty smell of ocean. I wandered, deep into the crevice, where I'd known for years one of our country's most prized treasures had long resided. And there it was – small, smooth, practically winking as it lay half-buried under flakes of gray.

It was still hot when I picked it up, glowing in my palm. Bright red. Beautiful. I held it, solemn and trembling and not dribbling all over it like I did with my other materia, and I carried it down the mountainside. Back into the inn, where everyone lay dozing, dead tired from the day's events. I kissed it before placing it on the bedside table, with my note beneath it. Telling them I couldn't travel with them anymore. _Because I've already betrayed AVALANCHE once. _Telling them it wasn't a very good sorry, but it was the best I could muster. _Because this weakness is a betrayal to Wutai, already_.

Telling them I had tried to take their materia, that half the mess was mine, that a dogeza was a really straining position and I hope it recompensed, even just a bit. That I had enjoyed the past few weeks with them immensely and that I – thought they were the most awesome people on the Planet, and I knew they would save it someday, _soon_, most likely, but that wasn't my job. _This_, looking after my country, was my job. Being the daughter of Wutai. Making my gods proud. _Because I suck at planning, because I'm proud and deceitful, because I know where I'm supposed to be and it was never with you, that's you in plural, AVALANCHE, YOU ALL OF YOU. _No, those words never left my head. I held them to my heart and I clamped them down and I had finished the letter by writing, in trembling fine print, _thanks for everything, really, _and that was it.

I took a good look at their faces, but it was a stupid thing to do. I'd remember them all anyway. Crystal clear, forever afterwards, the bestest friends I ever had, who'd saved my ass too many times for comfort. I think my biggest regret would be that I'd get to kiss none of them goodbye, lips bitten down and eyes wide open as I said the quietest farewell in the universe. It was the one right thing I knew I could do, and I wouldn't look back.

* * *

A/N: Yes, shame on me. :( Thank you to everyone who's still keeping up with this story, and to new readers as well. That you enjoy the story means the world to me. I'm working on the conclusion and I hope to be able to present it to you soon. :)


	10. the nobility around here

**IX. (Because we don't use the word nobility around here)**

The trouble with coming home after a long journey is that you sort of lie around feeling lazy and stupid and unproductive because there's been _too_ _much_ for _so long_ that the sudden wide expanse of free time and nothing beats you into submission. Remission. Sort of like the start of summer break after weeks of school, if I'd attended regular school anyway (but no, ninja training had no breaks, only the kind that involved bones and oftentimes necks), when all you want to do is sleep in your pajamas and think about everything else you're _going_ to do when you finally get off your butt. Swim in the waves of some whitesand beach. Finally hook up with Someone Attractive, and do exercises that will actually give you a _figure_. Learn how to paint, or twist balloon animals. Cute, ambitious things like that.

I didn't sleep a wink that night. I'd already slept so much the past day, and every time I almost closed my eyes I was overcome with something that felt uncomfortably like depression.

Also, my house smelled like cat poop.

-xx-

At exactly five in the morning I got up, gathered my belongings, hit the switch that would open up to a musty secret passage, and wriggled my way back into Godo's house, where I knew he would just be starting his day with rice and a cup of natto (I never agreed with his food choices. The gross substance could be smelled a mile away, and looked almost as repulsive as it tasted). And he was there exactly, sitting cross-legged at the breakfast table, big belly straining through his robes. I think he choked on all those fermented beans when he saw me, leaning against the door to the dining room with dust bunnies all over me like a second skin.

"I'm, uh. Home." And then I gave a shrug-wave and hoped for the best.

There was still a clump of rice on his lower lip when he stood and squinted hard at me, as if I were a ghost (well the dust _did_ make me suspiciously whiter). "Yuffie?"

"The one and only, Pop."

We stood and looked warily at each other like babies meeting for the first time – reunions were never our strong point, whenever our honorable Family Tree gathered together we were the most awful hosts the country had ever seen, me being cheeky to all the important people and Godo far too relaxed to have any _presence_ – then just as I was wondering whether coming over and punching him in the gut would be as good an embrace as any, his face split into this wide, wide smile – and _oh god, _it was my fat old father, flab and wrinkles and thinning hair. I hadn't seen his eyes crinkle like that in _ages_. Then he said, "Well, sit down, why don't you? Let's have some breakfast."

We were so indescribably calm that I felt like hitting my head against the wall. Instead I half-shouted, "It's okay, you can say you missed me, I won't vomit or anything! Come on! Admit it!"

"Eat," he said, familiarly stern and so spectacularly silly with that blob of rice still on his lip that I burst out laughing. (Next to shouting, that was the most common sound in this household.)

-xx-

There was an invisible elephant in that room that had a million bells and was snorting like anything, but I couldn't bring myself to crash everything back to reality. For one thing, I didn't have the materia I had _promised_ to return with. For another, I had just _given away_ one of our country's most precious heirlooms in a fit of apologetic feeling. I sipped my tea benevolently and was just about to comment on how fat the koi were looking, what exactly was he feeding them, growth hormones were inorganic and bad you know, when he thumped his belly and said, "So! What have you, been, well, up to? I think the last card I got from you was just those two lines about poison mushrooms and how you needed me to send you money for the hospital, but you didn't give me a return address." He coughed. "We can call up the Tavern tonight and have a welcome home dinner, too. Unlimited sushi. And the Pagoda guardians will want to hear how you are as well."

He wasn't asking. I danced my fingers over the teacup I had been mostly not-drinking – my dad was awful at making tea – onto the table, onto my lap. Where was the_ m_ word? A conversation was not complete without the _m _word. I knew I was being rude. I looked up.

"Pop, I've been – in the forests outside of Junon, I – " Oh _no. _No no no. This was not happening. _No_ cracking voices. _No_ watery eyes. I swallowed and tried again. "There was a giant lizard – Golden Saucer – that Tiny Bronco – they had so much of it but I," a failed attempt was a failed attempt. "I don't know -" weren't my eyes _tired_ yet? I knew _I_ was. Gawds, this was annoying. "I don't know what anymore. I don't." And then I danced my fingers over my eyes and started crying. _Again_.

If I thought _Vincent_ would have trouble comforting me, I should have remembered how my _dad_ fared doing it. When he wasn't the reason for my crying – which was most of the time – he was magnificently awkward. And I _hated_ crying in front of him, of all people in the world – he was Leviathian personified, immovable and not just because he weighed too much. Besides the fact that ninjas weren't supposed to have tear ducts or something. Why couldn't I explain anything? Was the story too long? Too shameful? Too – damned painful and real, that's what it was, and when I thought that any moment now AVALANCHE would be waking up to me being out of their lives forever it was like getting socked in the gut by one of those angry chickens at Cosmo Canyon. Fire and knocked-out-breath and generally _bad_.

Godo said, very quietly, "Tell me."

Tell him what?

"Tell you what?"

"Why you're crying, you fool."

"But you won't like it." Simple honesty. It tasted as gross as natto, but I was sick of lying.

He sighed. _Oh boy, my stupid daughter has done it again. _Whatever It was. _It_ was always something. That was why I was a forest queen, disowned several times over, had no breasts, could never do anything right. I was so mad and sad and confused that I had little choice but to do as he said.

"Okay, fine – so it started near Junon – you know, those poison mushrooms were _real_, and -"

Noise. A commotion suddenly started sounding at the door (the outside one, two gates and a torii away, but who could fault ninja hearing). We froze.

"Excuse me!" Tifa's voice. Of course they would send Tifa. "Anyone in there?

I decided this pain was more like a shuriken being sunk and twisted in my gut. With eight edges. Edges dipped in poison. But at least the noise got me to stop blubbering; I slapped on my best stony face and hissed, "We aren't home. You are _not_ opening that door."

"Oh, aren't I?" Godo answered, serenely evil. "Another something I won't like?"

I cringed. "Just _don't_ –"

But he had already walked over, and was observing them from the reverse screen door. My body tensed; I could see he was puzzling about whatever was outside his gate. Then, without bothering to consult me further, he opened the inner door and went out. I cursed, but remembered there were tricks in this house I could exploit, that had taken me several years to master. Under the dining table was the whip that could pull me up to the ceiling, and under the second huge stone lining the koi pond was the sheet that could be spread over a body to make it meld with the wall. I snatched it up, moved the stone into place out of needless habit, tugged on the whip and found myself clinging to the ceiling with all my might. This sucked thoroughly. Ceiling exercises were the worst. Godo reappeared, followed by breasts and golden spikes. I stilled my breath as best as I could, upset that I couldn't do the same with my heart.

"As you can see, she isn't here," Godo intoned.

"But we asked at the Tavern – they said she can only _be_ here, if not at the other house. No one was answering at the other house." Tifa was doing her best reasoning voice.

Cloud looked around aggressively. He was too intense these days. Then, totally uncalled for, "Do you know that your daughter was abducted by the Turks? _Then _the infamous Don Corneo? They might have gotten her again. You need to be more concerned."

Parenting: not one of Cloud's strengths, but not my dad's, either. Godo paused, then drew himself up to his full height. It still only reached Cloud's shoulders (oh stubby genes, I shall forever curse thee) but my father was broad and could look regal if he tried. I nearly marveled.

"I have not seen Yuffie in over two years." I saw Cloud flinch. _Cloud_, flinching. "You have no right to speak to me that way, especially not about _her_. I have no idea who you two are, and I think _I_ would know better if that brat had suddenly come home. I also know my country better than you do, and what goes on inside it." He was inching forward now. "Besides, I have already disowned her. Numerous times."

Thanks a _lot_, dad. Though I had to say, his acting was perfect.

"Sir –" Tifa, calling my dad _sir? _Gawds. "This is really important to us."

"And I'm telling you, she hasn't come!" If Godo was suddenly capable of doing anguish, my respect for him would rise several degrees.

Cloud cut in, none too gracefully, "If you hear from her, we're waiting. We'll be waiting by the beach at sundown. We need to – at least talk to her. We're not leaving until we talk to her."

Oh, Cloud and his hero speeches.

"Get out of here," Godo said.

"Sorry." Tifa did look like she meant it.

"She could be hiding," Cloud said. Godo glared. They slowly paced back towards the door, shooting wondering glances around the room, and I could have sworn Tifa's gaze lingered exactly where I was, though I knew the spot just looked like another patch of ceiling. "Let's try the mountains," Cloud said at last, and I felt just a bit gratified at how he seemed – kind of dejected (yes, really – _missing _me? The idea was too strange). Then they were gone. I waited until they had ventured some distance, as indicated by Godo's approving nod by the window; then I collapsed to the floor, exhausted.

He turned to me.

"You, young miss, have some explaining to do."

-xx-

Is it stupid that I actually thought, for a second, of course _he_ wouldn't come?

I mean it wasn't even really that important.

-xx-

I think I embellished. Once or twice. Godo changed and I cleared up breakfast and kept talking. I think I nattered on a bit about snatching some of their materia the first time, and casting Shiva on the black-caped man myself (well, it was Ice, that counted?). I _did_, however, vomit on the coaster in Gold Saucer. Twice. And I must have killed about three dozen Allemagnes and Beach Plugs. I had scratches on my thigh from a Chimera encounter and had, actually, learned to do Gauntlet and Doom of the Living and was genuinely getting _better _at hand-to-hand combat. That wasn't a lie.

I must have also gone off-tangent about Vincent and moaned a bit about how he was a butthole in general but also pretty nice when he wanted to be, because Pop said "Wait, is this the same as the SOLDIER guy? Because I hate SOLDIER guys." And I said, "No that's Cloud, Vinnie is ex-Turk but now he's just a zombietard. Wait – Dad, the _Turks_. They've got a facility here. What is up with that?"

He shifted. "The Turks are here on – on stringent policies. We have a signed agreement, nothing that you would get, really. The place is usually empty."

"They come here for _vacation?_" I was aghast. "How long has this been going _on_?"

"You don't need to know," he said, and I could see he really didn't want to talk about it. I couldn't push it. Not after he had listened to me blabber for the last – was that more than an hour? In fact, I had managed to keep a relatively straight face throughout all of it. Now came the hard part.

"So we got here to Wutai. And I got their materia. Well I had _gotten_ it, but then – like they told you and I found out – the Turks nabbed me. Somehow. When was this, I don't know – yesterday? Long story short. Don Corneo – how did he get past _immigration_? Sheesh! You had _better _explain that to me – caught us, AVALANCHE saved us, and I couldn't keep their materia, Dad. I couldn't. I had to give it all back. It's _theirs_," wheeze. Slow down, heart. "And I had to."

"Why?" None too gentle. This was, inevitably, where the shouting began.

"Because it's theirs!"

"You're a _thief_, Yuffie."

"I'm a ninja."

"And a thief. You have picked the most pockets in all of Wutaian history."

I decided to throw him the next, most awful bomb. "I gave them Leviathian."

"You _what?_" His shoulders went up, and his face turned kind of purple.

I remained seated, stony-faced. "It was mine to give."

Now Godo was staring at me. Hard. "That's it. Get up. We're going to the Pagoda."

-xx-

There was no time to object, and I wasn't exactly in a position to protest. Godo made me take my weapons and accessories. Through the secret passageway, which he was pushing me through, we were there in a few minutes. As we climbed to the top, I started to get an inkling of what he intended for us to do. "Dad, you can't be serious –"

"Shut up."

Leviathan _was_ my heirloom, legally mine by birthright. But there was another materia, nearly equal to it in value, that he had dangled before me countless times before. _Only when you can match me in battle. _I remembered my rueful little girl's heart, how I had longed for it and it wasn't fair because my dad was a huge bully in the dojo. I couldn't fight in the state I was in, now – been crying too much, still scratched up from everything that had happened yesterday, wrung out to dry, exhausted. This wasn't _fair_. But brawling was the language my father spoke best in. He wanted to teach me a lesson. And this way, I realized, I could show him I meant _business_ when I said I had kept my training up. I could feel my body tense up with anticipation – or maybe it just missed our sparring sessions. I could be crazy like that.

The top floor was pristine as it had always been, immaculately cleaned by the legions of ninjutsu students that continued to ruin the lives of Gorki, Chekov, Staniv, and Shake. My father moved to the opposite end of the room. I stayed by the entrance, relishing the familiarity of the characters etched on the walls, on the floor. The smell of sweat and the golden sun of Wutai catching the dust motes in the air.

"Get ready!"

No bowing. No ceremony. Godo suddenly bellowed the words of the spell I suspected he was going to use, and then it was not my father in front of me, but the three-faced, four-armed menace of the Pagoda. Dancing on his nimble feet, wielding his blade, powerful as ever. But the terror I used to feel when I looked at him had subsided; there were other things I feared now, for better reasons. He moved forward to strike me with Beast Sword – the adrenaline from yesterday's battle suddenly rushed through me again, and I found I could respond to it, and flipped away. We fought. We blocked. We circled each other. I raced around the walls of the room, pitching my weapon when I could. He swung his blade – barely missed my head, and he raised one fist to pound me but I rolled away and stabbed him on the foot. He cast Trine on me – _Trine! _– and I felt like I was being ripped to shreds, stretched in every direction, crushed by the different forces. I somehow gasped out a Laser spell and it struck him, sent him sailing across the room. This _hurt_.

"Come as if you're trying to kill me!" He shouted, voice booming from all three of the creature's mouths. "Or I am really going to kill you!" Or hurt me so bad I was going to die, anyway. The crazy old coot! I pulled into the stance I had been perfected the last few weeks, every inch of me straining against the hurt of Trine, and I rained Doom of the Living upon him. Slice, slice, blind slice, elbow slash, he was doing his best to block but I was going to _cut him. Real hard._ Like I had something to prove – I did, and _I was going to_. I sailed through the air and slashed at him again, uppercut, cartwheel with blade end, and I saw his big body tremble, shrink, just as my strength gave out.

"Hah!" I managed, weakly. I stumbled onto my knees. "I win!" Oh my gawds, oh, _did I?_

"You can't even move," Godo said, and he _was_ Godo again, flat on his back against the floor.

I flapped my hand at him. _Ow_. He was right. "I'm on my knees, not on my back."

He heaved, blew out some shaky breaths. He _deserved_ that. "Well, you did improve."

"Not too shabby yourself, old man." My knees were giving way. I let myself collapse, arms out, starfish-shaped. The post-battle exhaustion made me feel ticklish, and I let out a snicker of amusement at the two of us. This was _silly. _"Call it a tie in my favor, then."

Godo, not to be outdone, suddenly let out a burst of laughter, which of course meant I started laughing hard myself. _Ow ow ow. _The laughter made my stomach hurt, but the pain everywhere else was subsiding, because Godo had sent out a Cure that settled over us. We laughed until the spell had worked completely, laughed until we were both going _whoo, whoo_ from the effort of it. We lay and listened to each other breathing.

"I can't believe you cast _Trine_ on me." I sat up, clutching my stomach. "You're nuts."

"I needed to know." He pulled himself upright, and I could see his face was serious.

"What?"

"If I can trust you to do this." He folded his arms. "Daughter, we had a _Plan_." He raised his eyebrows. "Now, I am going to ask you a simple question and you are going to have to answer correctly, or you will have poison darts up your butt. The kind of poison that even Gorki will have _hell _trying to cure."

He was beginning his verbal torture promises. I didn't get it. I waited for the punchline.

"What exactly _is_ AVALANCHE?"

Well, _that_ was unexpected. I blinked. "Um. An anti-terrorist group."

"Don't give me that! I'm asking you, _what is AVALANCHE?_" He was thundering now. I, who was not Cloud Strife, flinched.

"The people I've stayed with the last couple of months?"

"Wrong answer!"

"The people who are going to save the world?"

"Yuffie, _I am going to dangle you over Da Chao_!"

"The most kick-ass fighters I have ever met! With the best materia!" I was suddenly mad. So _now _he was going to get back at me for giving the materia away? When I was too tired to argue, that old _faker -_ "And I gave it, I gave it, I gave it back!" I stamped my foot. Somehow I had ended up standing. We could never argue sitting down. "Gawds help me, I _don't regret it!_"

"Getting warmer." When I looked up at him, there was an almost-grin on his face. I nearly jumped back in terror. "Oh _princess_," he said sweetly. "You've already given everything away. Really, there seems to be only one thing left to do."

Through a haze of disbelieving, I realized where this was going. But Godo _couldn't _be thinking that. Not after all I had told him…

He laced his hands over his stomach. "You said your AVALANCHE friends are going to beat this Sephiroth guy? They're going to save the world? Well, they probably won't need all that materia when this is over…"

"When it's over," I repeated, trancelike. I blinked. "No. No, I _can't _go." Not after what I had already done to them. After I had already sucked up my pride to correct things! If he thought I was going to – run back to them like a weakling, after I had lain all night feeling dramatic, actually feeling _right _about something I had done – "I won't, I don't want to!"

"Yuffie. It's not a question of you _wanting _to do it." He was using his business tone, but I recognized that smile – the smile of someone used to shaking hands beneath the table. "I am your sovereign, and I am sending you on a mission, as one of the best warriors of Wutai. There are enough skilled ninjas here to keep things in order; you could serve me better elsewhere." He paused, then, with effort - "I sent you out before so you could grow up a little, Yuffie. But I don't think it's been quite enough. The Plan doesn't have to end here. You will go, daughter," he boomed. "For the sake of Wutai!"

The compliment nearly whizzed over my head. I looked at him, eyes so wide they seemed to strain against my sockets. If he told me to do something as _emperor, _then there really wasn't much I could do about it. But would it be a breach of trust? Would making it an order make it all right? What I had promised Vinnie, and what I would promise my dad – but what he was saying _had a point. _Because there was a chance they really _wouldn't _need their materia afterward. Then it would be all right. This was the only thing I could do to have both. _Both_.

And suddenly fire was rising in my gut – duty, yes, but also what I _wanted_, what I could no longer lie to myself about. Adventure. Kicking evil butt. That dreaded f-word, that no respectable ninja was supposed to have, but they were there and they could really, truly be part of my life if I _let_ them. No more screwing up. Not with them. There were bigger, badder fish to fry than all the world's Corneos. If things turned out all right (and there was, _oh gawds_, a lot that could go wrong) then I would have something to be _proud _of. I could help save the world. Wutai was my world, but also part of _the_ world. Two birds, one stone.

"And when it's over, you know what to do," Godo finished.

Or one throwing star, anyway. I would still be a thief, in the end. Couldn't do much about that. Stealing was in my _genes, _wired in me from the tips of my calloused fingers to the cracked nails of my toes. I bled thievery, in the same way my dad would probably bleed pride (and fat), if anyone got up the guts to try and slice him. But I decided I _would_ try asking, when it was over.

There was a possibility that they would actually say _yes_.

Could be wishful thinking. Could be lack of planning. Or, once again, self-deception.

But I didn't need to think about that now. Right now, _this_ made things simpler. Godo was giving me leave, and as long as pride didn't get in the way…then I wouldn't be ashamed of what I'd done to Wutai. This meant I could go for its honor – I'd be fighting _for _it, for a real true and noble purpose.

"My lord." I dropped down on one knee, head bent, trying not to tremble. I held the bow for a few seconds, remembering the custom. Then I looked up.

My father – no, my master, emperor of Wutai – nodded his head, once, in affirmation. Then he reached into the folds of his robe and pulled something out. It was white and shone brightly in his hand.

"You could probably use this," he said. He was grinning.

I could tell my mouth was going wibbly as I accepted the gift. But I couldn't bear him seeing, so instead I bowed my head again, and raised up one fist against a palm in gratitude.

* * *

A/N: This chapter was supposed to be the Epilogue, but it got too long, so I've split it up into two parts. The second half should be up in June. Thank you to all readers for your patience, and for your lovely comments - especially the points about characterization. I greatly appreciate it. :) Thank you, thank you for all the support you've given this story thus far. I hope this ending (or this part of it, anyway) is not too far from your expectations, but please do let me know what you honestly think.


	11. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

I disliked goodbyes. They made my gut feel funny. They disagreed with me on principle. That was why I left at four in the morning the first time I sailed out of Wutai, having a ball with a barf bag in the back of some pirate ship that was _not_ supposed to have any extra passengers. The discomfort made me realize I wouldn't make the journey back unless I had something good to show for it. I finished the stock of tranquilizers before I saw the sun hit Midgar. When I finally stumbled onto land with my jelly legs, I realized the motion sickness was only half of it. I had left my home and it _hurt_. I missed my house and my cats and I wanted Da Chao in the morning and watered-down sake from the Tavern at night. I missed my dad. That we hated each other and could rarely stay in the same room without springing into a brawl seemed relative, those first few weeks on my own. I missed biting his arm, missed his lame taunting, missed our exchange of _you are good for nothing_. My world had been small but I loved it. It hurt to lie alone at night, without the comfort of anything familiar, and remember it.

It was strange to realize that was how I felt last night, thinking of AVALANCHE.

We left the Pagoda and made the quick journey back home in silence. There was a lump starting to rise in my throat that made me feel like gagging. Godo told me I had better take everything I needed. Which wasn't much. He looked over Conformer, tsked at the materia that was clicked into it. He told me I had better take some of the herbs that Chekov had pounded for medicine – one of them was supposed to help with dizziness, an organic sort of tranquilizer. "And this is for poison mushrooms," he intoned, with a glimmer of humor, showing me a pouch with little green berries in it. I smirked, and fetched myself a fresh batch of sharpened caltrops, and a new set of throwing stars and daggers, from our spares under the kitchen sink.

"You be careful with that, now," he said, nodding at All Creation.

"You're kidding, right?" I flung my _sheesh _face at him. He rolled his eyes.

"I also expect _you_ to wield Leviathan." He coughed. "Provided your magic skills have the capacity for it."

I knocked him on the shoulder. It suddenly crossed my mind that if we screwed things up, I wouldn't have another chance to return here. I might never give Shake that wedgie I _promised_, and I might never again trace the slender shape of Da Chao with my eyes, feed our koi table scraps, or finally hear ninjas-in-training call me _master _(which, inevitably, I would be now, having evenly matched the Lord of the Pagoda). Godo would be heirless forever and ever, and everyone would pity the great lord of Wutai, both wife and daughter dying too young and his hairline receding at an alarming rate. Who was going to take up the throne? (Not that he really had a throne. It was a figure of speech. He had a bunch of pillows that he could pile on a chair and sit on, if he needed to tower over any subjects.)

"You know, I was so ready to spend weeks and weeks moping here and being a general drag and I didn't even get a day to do it. You miss my whining. I know you do. Can I whine a little now?"

I meant that, really. I had imagined the days divided between my room and my house, and was I finally going to do paperwork? Did he unearth another bunch of suitors for me? We would have more proper duels and maybe that same evening we would have had fireworks. Right now there was no _time._ The worst was not over, there was still a long journey ahead (with many vehicles, undoubtedly, joy of joys). What was my point? I was going to creep out nearly as quiet as I came in. Somehow I couldn't believe this was happening. Did I mean to be wrenched away from the home I had spent the last few months tirelessly plotting my Big Steal for?

No, the truth was, I didn't know how to say goodbye. So I kept on talking.

"I had it all planned out. Day one, sleep. Day two, sleep. Day three, finish the shrimp crackers in the pantry. Day four, wonder whether I got it wrong. Hate myself for giving away Leviathan. Throw rocks in the forest." I had the best hobbies ever. "Day five, have a beer in the pub. I think I'm old enough now? Would the barkeep let me?"

Godo gave me this tired little slap on the shoulder, and I realized nothing was going to make this easier.

"You need to go now."

_Gaaaaaawds_. I shouldered my pack and put on my best stoic face and I told him, "I will be back so soon you will wonder at my rapidity, and also, I expect a bonfire and fresh catch squid and sushi served off a hot naked dude. Okay?"

"If you can pay for it," he snorted, and that was going to be the end of the conversation. I nodded, turned my back, went "Bye!" and zoomed out the door. Skedaddled. Away on my fairy feet til the next time, fare him well, gods be with him, but not like Godo will ever need them because he _is_ the gods and is invincible like the sun. By now it had extended to the eastern side of the sky. Just enough time to reach the beach. Had I spent so many hours blabbering, did we spend such a long time fighting?

I knew Godo had ordered me _for_ me, in the end. My sake. That was why I couldn't waste his goodwill by regretting this. I passed under the torii with my eyes bright and my mouth clamped into a smile.

-xx-

I decided I was going to stop feeling sorry for myself – stop thinking about how it was heartbreaking both to go or stay. This time, I would get things right, I would make things better. I'd fight the good fight in the name of universal good, love and honor, Wutai the prayer behind my every breath, and afterward I could go home and AVALANCHE could come with me. Take a fantastic vacation. They would finally get to party – Wutai wasn't a vacation spot for _nothing_ – til the sun went down and I'd be tossing materia like confetti in the air and we'd be dancing on the sand to the tune of a million drums. Tifa would mix us all tequilas (_Sex on the Beach_, I would gleefully demand), and we'd all pass out together under the stars.

I stopped, right outside the village, before I crossed the first bridge, to ecstatically wave at Da Chao. It seemed ages ago that I was dangling from her eyelid. From this distance one could see the details of the carved faces, the welcoming palms that reached out to me, beckoned to me, reminded me I would always have this: my beautiful home. I would never lose it. It would always be mine.

-xx-

I was never very good at approaching the ocean. That usually meant ships, which I could never bear. But this time, the slapping of the waves against the shore reminded me of _worse _things – what I was about face. To ease my churning guts, I had a conversation with myself that consisted mostly of What I Was Going to Say to Not Sound Like an Idiot When I Showed Up Before Them Like Nothing Ever Happened. Of course it didn't really help, when I finally spotted them sitting outside the airship in some kind of highly intimidating council circle, like a scene out of a survival story. I suddenly wished the scenery had more foliage so that I couldn't be spotted a mile away, looking so _awkward_ as I made my towards them. Augh.

It was Cait Sith, as usual, who sounded the alarm first.

"She's here she's here she's here!" Yes, thank you Caith Sith, for that blaringly loud announcement. Now all I needed were some crickets chirping to accentuate my presence. They all looked up, of course, and Tifa sprang up and moved forward, shading her eyes with her hand as she squinted at me. Barret, Aeris, and Cloud stood as well; Red uncurled. I noticed that Vincent and Cid weren't with them.

I slowed to a safe distance where, if they were pissed in the least, Cloud wouldn't be able to suddenly run me through with his sword. Not like he would – I didn't _think_ he would – but I knew what it was like to be a traitor, to be guilty. It was something I had to acknowledge, tied to the days-old ache in my back, Vincent's face as he told me _you know what AVALANCHE is like_.

"Um, hi." I think I smiled, wondered how to do this – it _was_ Cloud who said they needed to talk to me, right?

"Yuffie –" Tifa started, then glanced at Cloud and let him talk. He was getting into this leader thing really well.

"We got your letter," Cloud said solemnly.

"Oh, you," This was totally not the right time to be awkward or jokey, which of course meant I was being both those things. "You did? Did you like it?" I was probably stuttering. Help.

"Yuffie," Aeris said gently, and moved forward to close the distance between us, and I was not going to run to her, but were things going to be okay? "What do you really want to say?"

"I'm," What I'd promised Vincent, right, when he didn't tell them, when he could have? This was going to fix things. Somehow. "I'm sorry, guys. I would understand if -" If you just wanted me here to berate me; if you'll never trust me with your materia again. If I'll never get to fight beside you now. "If it's not okay. I know, I know what I did was terrible, it sucks loads to be betrayed. I'm sorry." I looked down, looked up. Looked down again. "I'm really sorry."

"We know, silly," Tifa said, laughing as she came forward. "Look, it doesn't matter."

"As long as you don't do it again," Cloud intoned, lighthearted but with enough of a warning to show he meant it. Barret rolled his eyes and said, "Leaving without you was not an option, but girl, you made us wait long enough!"

"Hey, she came," Red XIII added, padding towards us – they were swiftly forming some kind of half-circle around me. The lump in my throat was now so huge I was gonna choke on it.

"I'm still - still the daughter of Wutai," I managed to blurt out. It was a stupid thing to say, but I needed them to understand, at least _some_ of the reasons.

"Yeah, but for now, you're also a member of AVALANCHE." Cloud balled one of his hands into a fist and the cheesy gesture made my watery eyes seem severely inappropriate.

"Your skills could come in handy sometime," Tifa added.

"And you've rubbed off on all of us." Aeris concluded. I guess that was mostly it. I didn't particularly care.

"Group hug!" Caith Sith bellowed.

"You're such a handful," Barret summarized, and then we were all crushed against each other.

I think that meant the conversation was effectively over.

-xx-

Cid grinned at me when I came into the airship. "_Finally_," he intoned, knocking me lightly on the forehead. "I had to finetune the engine, shouldn't be as bumpy. But I've prepared the Emergency Yuffie Kit just in case." He shook out a bunch of plastic bags at me.

"Thanks," I said. "I should, you know, probably resume my usual place beside the cargo now."

"Yeah." He waved me off. "It wouldn't be the same without our barf fountain onboard, right?"

I suppose my reputation preceded me. Everyone filed into the airship, started walking around. Through the panel of windows I could see the ocean, lit up bright red and orange by the setting sun, the water ablaze. This was the weirdest homecoming I had ever had, and it would have probably been the worst – if I didn't know myself better. If I didn't now know what it was I had to do. It hit me that I had always thought about fixing Vincent, making him cheerier; but this time it had been the other way around, oddly enough.

I'd even gotten closer to the Turks. Sort of. My dad, in the span of a few hours. AVALANCHE, even more than before. And I had All Creation in my Conformer. That definitely meant something.

Was I really starting to think Mr. Doom and Gloom had been fixing _me_?

I was so preoccupied with this mindboggling thought, while listening for the telltale signs that we were lifting off, that I did not notice I had walked right into something very huge and bumpy and rather like a dead, pretty man.

Vincent Valentine caught me by the elbow.

"Wah!" I squeaked, ungracefully, but somehow managed to continue, "-aaat are you _doing_ here?" Lingering towards the entrance to the cargo hall, looking nonchalant and rather fresh for a corpse. I blushed, because he couldn't have possibly been waiting for _me_. I also tugged back my elbow in an attempt to save face.

"You didn't need to do that," he said. For a moment I wondered what he was talking about, then I remembered the conversation we had had the previous night. His expression was still mild as ever – at least he wasn't glowering – but he exhaled weird on that last word, so I suspected a trace of exasperation. I couldn't explain why this pleased me so much, but it did.

I crossed my arms. "Well, you seemed pretty sure I'd be back onboard."

"I wasn't wrong, was I?"

I willed myself not to blink, because that would make me look even more childish, and I already had a failing grade in flirting. So instead I went for teasing. "Did you follow me to Da Chao last night? If you did, you make a terribly, terribly magnificent stalker. I will also demand a restraining order."

"No, Yuffie, I did not." He paused, almost like he was wondering what to say next. (Man, Vinnie _sucked _at jokes.) Then he reached inside his cape. "I was, however, the first to see this –" _oh yes, yes yes _was he really going to – "And I think we all agree that this is yours." Leviathan sparkled in his grasp and I took it, tenderly, hushed with my own sacrifice being returned to me. "But your gesture was greatly appreciated."

I looked up at him. Smiled. Things were probably going to get worse from here, but right now that worry seemed distant, not foreboding.

"Well, I guess this is the end of one fantastical adventure. Fantastically weird," I shrugged. Rubbed my back. "You know, where you sliced me, it's going to have scars. It is going to be your awful signature on me." Yes, truly, I was going to be his most horrible work of art.

Vincent gave me his most zombielike expression. I snickered. Perhaps trying early wouldn't hurt.

"So as payment for permanently disfiguring this beautiful body, when all this is over, can I have your Doom and Odin and Gravity? Pretty please with sprinkles on top? You don't need your materia for moping. At least I don't think you do." I wasn't planning on letting him mope, anyway; not when there were better things to do. "Can I? Please?"

"Maybe," he answered, "When you stop talking everyone's ear off. At least this time you seem to be _asking_ before you take."

"Yes, I know you _were_ worried I wouldn't come too. You were bawling yourself to sleep last night." I sighed. "Vinnie, now we are bonded as glue. You don't have to miss me or be shy. Next time we come to Wutai, I will present you to my father as a candidate for my consort." I grinned. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Vincent Valentine made a sound not unlike choking.

**THE END**

* * *

A/N: AAAAND IT'S FINISHED. OMG.

A few words now, because I've been putting off this story-ender note for eons. XD

So I know I said I would post this epilogue early June. Aaand it's been four months since then. D'OH! I'm so sorry, everyone. Lots of things were happening IRL, but I also realized that this story means a lot to me and - and - I was actually kind of scared to finish it. But I finally have, and I do think it's time to let go. I consider this the only real multichaptered work I've ever finished - I never really knew when I was going to be able to write the next chapter. I started this story when I was sixteen, and it's taken me five years to finish it, which accounts for the pretty big shift in tone somewhere in the middle. I actually think I was better at approximating Yuffie's thoughts when I was her age; the way I wrote then was closer to the narrative style this story deserved. But I'm glad I stuck through with it anyway, and while it is by no means an overly ambitious work, it will always have a special place in my heart. Somewhere along the way it stopped being a Yuffentine and became more of just a Yuffie!fic, but that's okay - to this day Yuffie is, and probably forever will be, one of my favorite fictional characters ever.

And now for some thank you's: Tami, who inspired this whole thing with her beautiful fic _Tastes Like Green_, not to mention everything else she's ever written; Aton who was one of the first readers and helped me develop Yuffie, Godo, and Vincent the way I did; Noc and NC, for being one of the best cheerleaders for this story and always extending support; all those people who posted videos of the Wutai scenes on youtube, and sidequest FAQs on Gamefaqs, which were valuable references for the latter chapters; friends online and offline; and everyone who has read the story, shared their comments, encouragement and thoughts, liked Yuffentine or even just Yuffie a little more for it, and who has kept an interest despite the long waits between chapters and Yuffie's somewhat manic thought process - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Here, have a big kiss. I could never have finished this without you guys. Thank you for letting me share this story with you, it has been one of my best experiences in fandom.

That's all for now, but maybe we'll run into each other again in some future fic where Yuffie is still making the moves on Vinnie (or vice versa?). We'll see. :D

Much love,

mellish


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